THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


i 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/autobiographyofsOObesa 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 

of 
SIR  WALTER  BESANT 


WITH  A  PREFATORY  NOTE 
BY   S.  SQUIRE  SPRIGGE 


NEW    YORK-    DODD,    MEAD     AND 
COMPANY      •       MDCCCCII 


COPYRIGHT,     1902,     BY 
DODD,     MEAD    AND     CO. 


First  Edition  Published  April,  1902 


UNIVERSITY    PRESS    •    JOHN    WILSON 
AND     SON       •        CAMBRIDGE,    U.  S.  A. 


Contents 


CHAPTER   I 
Child  and  Boy i 


CHAPTER    II 
Child  and  Boy  {continued) 33 

CHAPTER   III 
School-Boy 55 

CHAPTER   IV 
King's  College,  London 67 

CHAPTER    V 
Christ's  College,  Cambridge 79 

CHAPTER   VI 
A  Tramp  Abroad 102 

CHAPTER    VII 
L'Ile  de  France m 

CHAPTER    VIII 

England  again  :    The  Palestine  Exploration 

Fund i45 

V 


891981 


CONTENTS 
CHAPTER   IX 

PAGE 

First    Steps    in    the    Literary  Career  —  and 

Later i68 

CHAPTER   X 

The    Start   in    Fiction  :    Critics    and    Criti- 
casters      1 80 

CHAPTER   XI 

The  Novelist  with  a  Free  Hand      ....     198 

CHAPTER    XII 
The  Society  of  Authors  and  Other  Societies     215 

CHAPTER   XIII 
Philanthropic  Work 243 

CHAPTER   XIV 
The  Survey  of  London «     261 

CHAPTER   XV 
The  Atlantic  Union 265 

CHAPTER    XVI 

Conclusion  :    The  Conduct   of    Life  and  the 

Influence  of  Religion 273 

INDEX 287 


VI 


A   Prefatory  Note 

.  .  .  "  It  is  hard  to  speak  of  him  within  measure  when  we  consider 
his  devotion  to  the  cause  of  authors,  and  the  constant  good  service  ren- 
dered hy  him  to  their  material  interests.  In  this  he  was  a  valorous, 
alert,  persistent  advocate,  and  it  will  not  be  denied  by  his  opponents 
that  he  was  always  urbane,  his  object  being  simply  to  establish  a  sys- 
tem of  fair  dealing  between  the  sagacious  publishers  of  books  and  the 
inexperienced,  often  heedless,  producers.  How  unselfishly,  with  how 
pure  a  generosity  he  gave  his  valuable  time  to  the  previously  neglected 
ofRce  of  adviser  to  the  more  youthful  of  his  profession,  may  be  esti- 
mated by  a  review  of  his  memorable  labours  in  other  fields.  They 
were  vast  and  toilsome,  yet  he  never  missed  an  occasion  for  acting  as 
the  young  author's  voluntary  friend  In  the  least  sentimental  and  most 
sensible  manner.  He  had  no  thought  of  trouble  or  personal  loss 
where  the  welfare  of  his  fellow-workers  was  concerned.  .  .  ." — Mr. 
George  Meredith,  writing  of  Sir  Walter  Besant  in  the  Author  of 
July,  1901. 

/4  N  autobiography  should  be  its  own  justifica- 
/-\  tion  and  its  own  interpretation.  There 
-^  should  be  no  room  for  a  preface  and  no 
need  for  any  intermediary  between  the  writer  and 
the  pubHc  to  whom  he  has  designed  to  appeal.  If 
it  is  necessary  to  add  much  to  an  autobiography, 
the  author  is  made  to  appear  to  have  suppressed 
things  that  he  should  have  said  ;  if  any  passages  are 
deleted,  the  portrait  of  himself  which  he  proposed 
to  draw  is  rendered  incomplete.  I  have  kept  these 
things  before  me,  and  in  preparing  Sir  Walter 
Besant's  autobiography  for  the  press  have  confined 

vii 


A    P  REFA  T  O  RT    NOTE 

the  modifications  to  the  correction  of  obvious  slips, 
and  to  the  addition  of  certain  passages  —  mainly  quo- 
tations from  his  own  works  ^  —  to  which  references 
were  made  in  the  manuscript.  Only  a  few  words  are 
called  for,  but  the  circumstances  in  which  Sir  Walter 
Besant's  autobiography  is  being  published  require  a 
little  explanation.  These  circumstances  account  for 
the  slight  corrections  that  have  been  made,  as  well 
as  for  the.  obvious  incompleteness  of  his  record  in 
certain  directions.  It  has  been  felt  by  his  widow, 
by  the  executors  of  his  will,  and  by  his  literary 
executor,  that  this,  in  justice  to  his  memory,  should 
be  made  clear  to  the  reader. 

Sir  Walter  Besant's  autobiography  was  written 
for  publication,  and  no  one  had  any  right  to  with- 
hold the  book  from  the  public.  Yet  although  Sir 
Walter  Besant  expressly  meant  his  account  of  his 
life  to  be  published,  death  overtook  him  before  he 
had  prepared  it  for  press.  Those  who  were  familiar 
with  the  man  and  his  literary  methods  know  well 
what  that  means  ;  they  know  that  the  autobiography 
is  not  presented  in  the  form  it  would  have  appeared 
in  had  it  undergone  the  minute  revision  to  which 
all  his  written  matter  was  subjected.  His  limpid 
style  did  not  betray  the  fact  that  he  was  a  rigorous 
critic  of  himself.  In  the  eleventh  chapter  of  the 
autobiography  he  explains  to  all  whom  it  may  in- 
terest his  manner  of  writing  a  book.     He  compares 

1  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus,  the  publishers  of  Sir  Walter  Besant's 
novels,  have  kindly  given  permission  for  the  inclusion  of  these  passages 
in  the  autobiography. 

viii 


A     P  RE  FA  T  O  RT    NOTE 

it  to  the  task  of  an  engineer  constructing  a  tunnel, 
drilling  and  mining,  completing  the  work  behind 
while  thrusting  the  pick  into  the  work  ahead.  This 
autobiography  is  to  some  extent  an  unfinished 
tunnel.  Being  an  autobiography,  the  course  of 
the  work  was  clearly  indicated  to  the  author,  who 
was  able  to  dispense  with  a  rough  draft.  But  what 
he  should  include  and  what  he  should  omit,  what 
he  should  treat  fully  and  what  he  should  regard 
as  episodes,  had  to  be  considered,  and  this  was  cer- 
tainly not  done  by  Besant  in  all  places  with  his  usual 
thorough  care.  If  he  had  followed  his  invariable 
plan  of  composition,  he  would  have  made  up  his 
mind  on  many  such  points  only  when  he  came  to 
the  actual  task  of  revising.  This  revision  was  wont 
to  be  done  upon  his  manuscript  roughly,  and  then 
very  fully  upon  a  type-written  copy  of  that  manu- 
script. The  manuscript  of  the  autobiography  had 
not  been  type-written.  The  written  manuscript 
was  fully  and  freely  corrected,  and  it  may  be  taken 
for  granted  that  the  earlier  portions  of  the  work 
now  appear  much  as  they  were  intended  to  appear; 
but  the  later  chapters  would  certainly  have  been 
amplified,  and  possibly  modified  in  some  directions. 
Such  revision  cannot  be  done  now  by  any  one,  how- 
ever sure  we  may  feel  that  it  would  have  been  done 
by  him.  If  certain  passages  appear  to  readers  to 
be  unnecessarily  sweeping,  and  especially  if  those 
who  enjoyed  a  personal  acquaintance  with  Besant 
find  expressions  of  opinion  in  his  posthumous  me- 
moir which  hardly  represent  the  man  they  knew,  I 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

would  press  that  these  points  may  be  remembered: 
that  he  died  leaving  the  manuscript  in  what  he 
would  have  considered  an  unfinished  state ;  that  it 
was  his  express  desire  that  it  should  be  published ; 
and  that  any  attempt  to  modify  his  work  either  by 
addition  or  subtraction,  however  honest  in  its  inten- 
tion to  make  a  more  accurate  picture,  would  amount 
to  a  dangerous  tampering  with  the  original. 

The  autobiography  does  Besant  scant  justice,  but, 
in  noting  the  deficiencies,  I  do  so  with  no  com- 
pletely unnecessary  eulogy,  and  no  equally  unneces- 
sary apology.  Nor  do  I  attempt  to  point  out  places 
where  I  believe  the  author  would  have  made  altera- 
tions. The  revision  might  have  taken  the  fiDrm  of 
some  modification  of  words,  or  the  addition  of  other 
matter  which  would  have  altered  the  proportions  of 
the  work,  and  no  one  can  guess  which  change,  if 
any,  would  have  been  made.  But  it  is  permissible 
to  say  a  few  prefatory  words  to  guard  against  false 
impressions,  the  creation  of  which  would  certainly 
not  have  been  risked  had  Besant  revised  his  manu- 
script as  a  whole. 

Firstly,  then,  although  Sir  Walter  Besant  with 
much  directness,  and  several  times,  inveighs  against 
the  evangelical  tenets  which  prevailed  in  his  youth, 
and  although  he  enunciates  at  the  end  of  his  auto- 
biography his  religious  creed  with  complete  clear- 
ness, there  is  no  real  connection  between  his  creed 
and  his  dislike  of  evangelical  teaching.  From  a 
religious  point  of  view  his  dislike  was  rather  to 
ritualism.     His  hatred  —  for  no  other  word  can  be 


A     P  RE  FA  T  0  RT    NOTE 

used  —  of  the  evangelical  teaching  of  his  youth  was 
an  expression  of  his  delight  in  life,  and  had  nothing 
to  do  with  his  sacred  convictions.  He  saw  the 
beauty  of  holiness,  but  he  loathed  the  doctrine  that 
it  was  wrong  to  be  happy  in  this  world  —  the  idea 
that  heaven  was  propitiated  by  the  earthly  misery 
of  those  who  sought  to  be  good.  He  perceived 
the  stupidinconsistency  and  illogicality  of  those  who 
held  that  the  small  section  who  did  as  they  did 
would  be  saved  whatever  their  failings,  while  all 
who  differed  from  them  about  such  a  minor  ethical 
point  as,  say,  the  propriety  of  play-going,  must  be 
irretrievably  damned,  whatever  their  virtues.  "  If 
a  person,"  says  Overton  in  'The  English  Church  of 
the  Nineteenth  Century  with  regard  to  the  evangelical 
school,  "  was  enjoying  awell-spread  feast  at  Clapham, 
with  all  the  charms  of  the  conversation  of  Wilberforce 
or  Milner  —  which  to  many  people  would  be  in- 
finitely more  entertaining  than  most  of  the  so-called 
entertainments  provided  by  'the  world'  —  he  was 
doing  right,  and  was,  so  far  as  outward  surroundings 
went,  on  the  way  to  heaven.  But  if  he  was  reading 
one  of  Miss  Austen's  novels,  or  at  a  dance,  or  a 
concert,  or  at  a  card-table  (not  necessarily  gambling), 
or  seeing  one  of  Goldsmith's  delightful  plays  acted, 
he  was  doing  wrong,  and,  so  far  as  outward  sur- 
roundings, was  in  plain  words  on  the  way  to  hell." 
Besant  was  born  and  bred  in  touch  with  these  views, 
and  imbibed  a  horror  of  their  cruelty. 

And  if  an  intense  dislike  of  seeing  people  wan- 
tonly made  unhappy  set  him  against  the  tenets  of 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

the  party  in  the  English  Church  with  which  he 
should  have  had  most  affinity,  so  an  equally  intense 
dislike  of  the  mystical  set  him  against  ritualism. 
Sir  Walter  Besant  was  a  clear-headed  man  who  de- 
lighted in  thinking  out  mental  and  social  problems 
for  himself,  and  detested  anything  that  savoured  of 
the  incomprehensible.  In  more  than  one  of  his 
novels  an  important  situation  is  the  exposure  of  the 
vain  pretension  of  one  of  the  characters  to  extraor- 
dinary powers  —  powers  of  supernatural  achieve- 
ment, powers  of  discrimination  or  criticism  of 
higher  and  more  delicate  character  than  those 
granted  to  ordinary  mortals.  He  was  ready  to 
allow  that  we  now  see  only  through  a  glass  darkly ; 
but  he  was  not  ready  to  allow  that  any  form  of 
ordination  would  make  one  man  see  further  than 
another,  nor  to  believe  that  ceremonial  might  help 
insight  by  helping  faith.  Feeling  deeply  as  he  did 
the  mystery  of  immortality,  he  resented  any  assump- 
tion on  the  part  of  a  class  of  ability  to  see  further 
into  the  mystery  than  other  persons.  Sir  Walter 
Besant  was,  it  must  always  be  remembered,  a  scholar 
—  and  so  successful  a  scholar  that  although  in  his 
modest  record  of  his  achievements  he  makes  light 
of  what  he  did  as  a  young  man,  it  is  quite  clear 
that  he  was  from  childhood  an  intellectual  leader. 
His  natural  place  was  at  the  head.  To  his  intel- 
lectual equals,  and  especially  to  men  of  leading  in 
different  departments  of  learning,  he  was  always 
willing  to  defer ;  but  to  a  priesthood  basing  their 
right  to  interpret  the  Word  of  God  on  other  than 

xii 


A     P  RE  FA  TO  RT    NOTE 

intellectual  grounds  he  could  not  bring  himself  to 
listen.  To  some  this  attitude  will  seem  intolerant, 
and  to  some  it  will  seem  sensible ;  but  to  all  who 
knew  Sir  Walter  Besant  it  will  seem  the  only  pos- 
sible one  for  him.  Perhaps  he  may  appear  to  speak 
against  priestly  authority  —  or  priestly  interposition, 
as  he  regarded  it  —  with  a  little  acerbity,  but  such 
an  element  was  so  completely  foreign  to  his  sweet 
and  genial  nature  that  we  may  be  sure  that  its 
appearance  is  accidental,  and  would  have  been  re- 
moved if  the  writer  had  been  spared  to  think  over 
his  words. 

In  another  place  in  his  autobiography  Sir  Walter 
Besant's  words  are  more  insistent  than  they  need 
have  been  to  give  a  fair  representation  of  his  feel- 
ings. I  refer  to  his  repeated  allusions  to  the  short- 
comings of  a  certain  class  of  literary  critic.  Here 
again,  I  am  convinced,  the  appearance  of  acerbity  is 
out  of  proportion  to  the  real  state  of  his  sentiments. 
He  was  not  always  fairly  reviewed,  and  in  particular 
his  antiquarian  learning  and  faithful  reproduction, 
at  whatever  cost  of  time  or  trouble,  of  local  colour 
often  had  scant  justice  done  to  them.  But  he  will 
have  given  a  wrong  impression  of  himself —  a  com- 
pletely wrong  and  unworthy  impression  —  if  he 
leads  his  readers  to  believe  that  his  attitude  towards 
critics  was  inspired  by  wounds  to  his  own  literary 
vanity.  To  begin  with,  Besant  received  always 
sufficient  hearty  support  in  the  best  quarters  to  make 
him  feel  that  it  did  not  hurt  him  to  be  belittled  here 
and  there ;  and  secondly,  he  was  the  least  vain  of 

xiii 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

men.  No.  Besant  was  hurt  and  annoyed  with  a 
certain  class  of  critics  because,  as  he  conceived  their 
duty,  they  had  no  proper  qualifications  to  perform 
it.  They  were  not  scholars,  and  had  no  business 
to  attempt  to  stand  between  the  public  and  the 
writer ;  they  had  no  literary  or  practical  experience 
either  to  enable  them  to  tell  the  author  what  was 
good,  bad,  and  indifferent  in  his  books,  or  to  help 
the  reader  to  choose  his  mental  food  aright.  He 
scented  in  the  sayings  of  these  ill-equipped  judges 
the  savour  of  charlatanism  that  always  offended  him 
—  their  pretensions  annoyed  him  as  those  of  the 
ritualist  annoyed  him.  He  believed,  and  probably 
more  than  occasionally  with  some  justice,  that  the 
airs  of  omniscience  concealed  depths  of  ignorance ; 
while  perhaps  he  hardly  recognised  that  it  is  much 
easier  now  than  it  was  in  his  own  young  days  to 
get  a  working  knowledge  of  an  author  without  deep 
reading.  In  the  fifties  and  sixties,  if  a  man  wanted 
to  know  about  —  for  example  —  Rabelais  or  Balzac, 
he  would  have  to  read  their  works.  And  he  would 
have  to  read  them  all,  if  he  had  no  well-informed 
friend  to  guide  him  in  making  a  selection  ;  other- 
wise he  could  come  to  no  judgment  that  would  be 
worth  quoting,  or  that  he  would  dare  to  depend 
upon.  To-day,  thanks  to  Besant,  among  other 
men  of  letters,  there  are  monographs  and  exact  trea- 
tises which  deal  with  all  accepted  classics,  so  that  it 
is  possible  for  the  critic  to  speak  and  write  as  though 
his  reading  had  been  vastly  wider  than  is  the  case, 
and  at  the  same  time  to  be  fairly  correct.      I  think 

xiv 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

Besant  hardly  realised  this  fact  when  he  put  down 
the  men,  who  paraded  an  intimate  knowledge  where 
a  nodding  acquaintance  was  all  that  they  possessed, 
as  necessarily  wrong  in  what  they  said. 

In  his  younger  days  the  acquisition  of  exact 
knowledge  was  harder,  and  perhaps,  therefore,  more 
prized.  It  must  be  remembered  that  Sir  Walter 
Besant's  particular  friends  at  college  were  all  men 
of  learning.  Christ's  College,  Cambridge,  during 
his  time  was  a  particularly  brilliant  establishment. 
Besant  belonged  to  the  reading  set,  and  was  brought 
up  in  a  school  of  hard  work.  His  knowledge  was 
fought  for,  and  recalling  the  difficulty  that  he  had 
experienced  in  obtaining  it,  he  found  it  hard  to 
realise  that  nowadays  knowledge  is  easier  to  come 
by.  Again,  he  was  impatient  of  facile  criticism  be- 
cause he  had  an  immense  opinion  of  the  dignity  of 
letters,  and  a  great  pride,  as  a  novelist,  in  the  part 
that  novels  had  played  in  the  education  and  de- 
velopment of  peoples.  He  could  not  believe  that 
it  was  either  sound  policy  on  the  part  of  an  editor, 
or  fair  play  towards  a  writer,  to  hand  good  work  by 
responsible  men  over  to  a  glib  critic,  to  whom  only 
a  few  lines  could  be  allotted  in  which,  upon  imperfect 
information,  he  must  express  a  summary  judgment. 
In  behalf  both  of  letters  and  of  fiction  he  protested 
against  the  custom,  without  perhaps  quite  appreciat- 
ing the  editorial  position  in  the  matter.  However, 
I  have  no  Intention  of  trying  to  explain  away  what 
he  has  said ;  I  write  only  to  make  it  clear  that  his 
views  are  expressed  In  the  autobiography  in  a  dis- 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

proportionate  manner.  To  read  him  one  would 
think  that  the  iniquity  of  critics  was  a  subject  upon 
which  he  was  constantly  brooding ;  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  it  was  a  subject  in  which  he  took  no  deeper 
interest  than  scores  of  literary  men,  while  it  must 
be  again  repeated  that  what  interest  he  took  was  in 
no  sense  personal.  He  was  jealous  for  the  position 
and  privileges  of  authors  as  a  whole,  and  the  stress 
that  is  laid  upon  the  shortcomings  of  some  of  their 
professional  appraisers  is  due  to  this.  It  would  not 
have  been  so  noticeable  if  the  autobiography  had 
been  a  complete  and  rounded  story.  It  is  not.  It 
is  an  exposition  of  the  novelist's  life,  showing  how 
good  a  life  it  is  when  conscientious  work  meets 
with  success.  Besant  elaborated  the  record  of  those 
parts  of  his  life  which  he  conceived  to  have  had  a 
particular  influence  upon  his  choice  of  a  career,  and 
upon  the  position  to  which  he  attained  in  literature. 
For  the  rest  his  tale  is  made  up  of  somewhat  dis- 
connected notes,  which  serve  to  show  the  depth  as 
well  as  the  multiplicity  of  his  interests,  but  which 
have  not  been  written  by  him  with  strict  regard  to 
proportion.  It  is  possible  that,  if  he  had  lived  to 
complete  and  revise  his  work,  many  of  the  gaps 
would  have  been  filled  up ;  but  even  so,  the  later 
chapters  would  not  have  contained,  I  think,  the 
minute  personal  details  of  the  earlier  —  those  which 
describe  the  evolution  of  the  novelist,  the  character 
that  he  meant  to  portray. 

If  it  had  been  felt  that  any  critical  estimate  of  Sir 
Walter  Besant's  work  would  form  a  fitting  intro- 

xvi 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

duction  to  his  autobiography,  the  task  would  have 
been  committed  to  someone  of  his  own  literary  posi- 
tion and  weight  ;  and  that  a  critic  of  this  quality 
may  soon  speak  with  no  uncertain  voice  upon  the 
matter  I  hope  sincerely.  But  it  is  clear  from  his 
own  words  that  he  would  have  preferred  that  no 
summing  up  of  his  imaginative  work  should  be 
given  hastily.  It  was  a  part  of  his  high  conception 
of  the  novelist's  duties  to  dislike  all  attempts  at 
placing  novelists  above  or  below  one  another  in 
some  arbitrary  hierarchy,  and  all  labelling  of  them 
as  belonging  to  this  or  that  school  of  thought.  "It 
is  sufficient,"  he  would  have  said  for  himself,  "  to 
read  my  books  —  I  desire  to  be  judged  by  them;" 
while  he  would  not  have  considered  a  novelist  to 
have  wholly  succeeded  in  his  craft  if  his  work  re- 
quired much  interpretation,  or  if  many  reasons  had 
to  be  found  for  its  want  of  popularity.  He  was 
aware  of  the  pellucid  nature  of  his  productions,  he 
was  aware  how  little  they  required  the  assistance  of 
the  critic,  and  how  entirely  the  explanation  of  the 
point  of  view  was  superfluous.  Straightforward 
characters,  set  in  an  accurate  environment,  often 
subtly  and  very  often  delicately  drawn,  but  about 
whose  significance  there  never  could  be  a  shadow  of 
doubt,  tell  their  own  stories  in  his  pages,  and  while 
revealing  their  characteristics  complete  the  narrative. 
What  need  of  explanation  ?  Well,  only  this.  Sir 
Walter  Besant  by  practice  —  painstaking  practice, 
as  he  informs  us  —  learned  to  use  so  facile  a  pen 
that  his   limpid   prose,  together  with   his   rigorous 

xvii 


A    P  RE  FA  T  O  RT    NOTE 

habits  of  emendation,  resulted  in  a  page  that  was 
extremely  easy  to  read,  and  the  pains  which  it  might 
have  cost  to  write  were  never  really  appreciated. 
Again,  the  conscientious  care  with  which  all  his 
pictures  of  men  and  manners  were  set  in  a  suitable 
frame,  escaped  the  notice  of  his  critics,  because  his 
historical  information  was  utilised  without  parade. 
Passages  proving  a  really  wonderful  familiarity  with 
eighteenth-century  habits  were  often  regarded  as  so 
much  padding  to  a  pretty  tale,  because  his  smooth 
methods  made  his  performance  seem  obvious.  If 
the  tale  had  been  less  pretty,  more  attention  would 
have  been  paid  to  the  mise-en-scene ;  the  treasures 
of  accurate  knowledge,  lovingly  and  laboriously  ac- 
quired, would  have  been  better  appreciated  if  they 
had  been  more  forced  upon  the  attention.  But  that 
is  exactly  the  sort  of  thing  that  Besant  would  never 
wittingly  provide  for.  He  loved  his  stories,  and  to 
exalt  his  own  learning  by  laying  disproportionate 
stress  upon  some  minor  incident,  and  by  so  doing 
to  imperil  the  symmetry  or  verisimilitude  of  his 
work,  would  have  been  abhorrent  to  him.  I  trust 
that  some  sound  judge,  a  man  with  learning  to  appre- 
ciate Besant's  scholarly  equipment,  and  with  sym- 
pathy for  the  difficulties  which  the  author  created 
for  himself  by  the  strict  limitations  within  which  he 
was  resolved  to  abide,  will  in  the  near  future  give 
us  an  authoritative  note  upon  Sir  Walter  Besant's 
fiction. 

Sir  Walter  Besant   never  lived  to  complete  the 
work  which  would  have  established  him  at  once  and 

xviii_ 


A     P  REFA  T  O  RT    NOTE 

for  ever  in  the  public  eye  as  a  historian  and  anti- 
quary—  I  mean  the  Survey  of  London.  In  the  four- 
teenth chapter  of  the  autobiography,  wherein  he 
describes  the  scope  of  the  vast  scheme  that  he  had 
undertaken,  he  speaks  of  the  Survey  of  London  as  no 
inconsiderable  part  of  his  life-work.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  task  that  he  laid  upon  himself  was  enor- 
mous. He  proposed  with  his  own  pen  to  write  the 
history  of  London  from  the  earliest  times  to  the 
end  of  the  nineteenth  century,  taking  into  account 
the  chief  historical  events  in  their  political  and  his- 
torical bearing.  Special  sections  of  the  work  — 
scientific  education  in  London,  the  story  of  the 
London  stage,  the  work  and  position  of  the  Metro- 
politan hospitals,  are  three  such  sections  that  occur 
to  my  mind  at  once  —  he  proposed  to  delegate  to 
selected  writers  ;  but  their  contributions  would  have 
been  welded  by  him,  according  to  his  design,  into 
a  symmetrical  whole.  He  did  not  live  to  accom- 
plish the  task ;  but  he  made  such  headway  with  it 
that  the  whole  of  the  history  from  his  own  hand  is 
finished  in  manuscript,  and  one  volume  is  in  type. 
He  commenced  his  labours  by  arranging  for  peram- 
bulations of  the  whole  city  in  imitation  of  Strype's 
"  circuit-walk  taken  for  diversion  four  or  five  miles 
round  about,"  and  as  it  is  six  years  since  these  per- 
ambulations were  done,  it  follows  that  to-day  they 
are  in  a  sense  out  of  date.  I  say  in  a  sense,  for  in 
another  sense  a  history  of  London  is  never  out  of 
date,  just  as  it  can  never  be  up  to  date.  No  his- 
tory of  London  can  do  more  than  mark  a  stage, 

xix 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

from  which  point  other  writers  will  take  up  the  tale. 
The  perambulations  in  Besant's  Survey  are  not  true 
of  1 901  ;  but  if  they  had  been  true  of  1901  they 
would  not  have  been  true  of  1902.  To  many  it 
will  seem  fortunate  that  his  perambulations  were 
made  a  little  before  the  pulling  down  of  ancient 
buildings  that  has  been  necessitated  by  certain  of 
the  recent  and  comprehensive  improvement  schemes. 
They  gain  thereby  in  interest  for  present  readers ; 
while  the  only  drawback  is  that  the  historian  of  the 
future  will  have  to  build  upon  Besant's  structure, 
beginning  at  1897,  instead  of  at  the  more  obvious 
date  of  1901.  The  year  1901,  which  saw  the  com- 
mencement of  the  new  century  and  the  death  of  the 
Great  Queen  whose  reign  forms  such  a  distinct  and 
splendid  epoch  in  our  national  development,  was 
felt  by  Sir  Walter  Besant  to  be  the  ideal  date  up  to 
which  to  bring  his  history,  but  the  glory  and  pleas- 
ure of  doing  this  have  been  denied  him.  He  made 
however  sufficient  progress  to  show  how  capable  he 
would  have  been  to  carry  out  his  colossal  design, 
Let^me  quote  a  small  passage  taken  quite  at  random 
from  the  perambulations  to  show  what  kind  of  a 
book  Besant  had  planned.  They  are  the  first  sen- 
tences in  the  perambulation  of  Fulham,  the  section 
of  the  manuscript  dealing  with  Fulham  being  by  the 
kindness  of  Messrs.  A.  and  C.  Black  under  my 
hand: — 

"  If  we  enter  Fulham  at  the  extreme  north  east  corner, 
the  point  where  the  Hammersmith  Road  crosses  the  dis- 
trict railway  between  the  Addison  Road  and  West  Bromp- 

XX 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

ton  stations,  we  find  ourselves  in  the  ward  numbered  one 
on  the  Vestry  map  and  known  as  Baron's  Court.  When 
Faulkner  wrote  his  history  of  Fulham  (1813)  this  was  still 
a  country  district,  containing  only  a  few  scattered  houses, 
alono-  the  North  End  Road.  Avonmore  Road  runs  south 
from  the  boundary,  and  in  it  there  is  a  sorting  office  of  the 
Post  Office.  William  Street  is  parallel  to  it,  and  has  board 
schools  on  either  side.  That  on  the  west  was  built  in 
1874,  and  subsequently  added  to,  that  on  the  east  in  1886. 
Further  south,  William  Street  becomes  Lisgar  Terrace. 
The  North  End  Road,  which  is  a  little  further  westward, 
begins  at  the  Hammersmith  Road,  and  for  part  of  its  course 
runs  due  north  and  south.  In  it  stands  a  chapel  of  the 
United  Methodist  Free  Church.  It  is  singularly  devoid  of 
any  pretension  to  beauty,  being  a  square  structure  of  dingy 
brick.  Further  south,  just  before  the  North  End  Road 
curves  round  to  meet  Edith  Road,  are  two  old  houses  on 
the  left  hand  side.  They  are  known  as  'The  Grange'  and 
were  formerly  one  building.  The  southern  half  is  of  red 
brick,  surrounded  by  a  high  wall,  and  has  a  gateway,  with 
tall  red  brick  pillars,  surmounted  by  stone  balls.  Beyond 
this  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  picturesque  stable  with  creep- 
ers covering  it.  Over  the  wall  hangs  an  acacia  tree,  and 
on  the  top  right-hand  corner  of  the  house,  just  above  a 
railed  balcony,  is  an  old  sundial.  The  house  is  now  the 
residence  of  Sir  Edward  Burne  Jones.  Its  fellow  adjoin- 
ing has  been  painted  a  light  stone  colour,  but  shares  in  the 
glamour  of  old  age.  It  is  in  the  style  of  William  III.,  and 
in  a  print  published  in  Richardson'' s  Correspondence^  1804, 
the  house  is  shown  divided  into  two,  as  at  present.  The 
red  brick  half  was  that  occupied  by  the  novelist,  who  lived 
here  until  1755,  when  he  moved  to  Parsons  Green,  p'aulk- 
ner  mentions  it  as  having  been  '  lately  altered  and  now 
occupied  as  two  houses,'  18 13.  A  little  further  south 
Edith  Road  branches  off  to  the  west.  At  the  time  of  the 
i860   edition    of  Crofton    Croker's    Walk  from    London  to 

xxi 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

Fulham^  it  was  to  be  'let  on  building  lease.'  It  is  now  a 
street  of  well-built  occupied  houses.  In  it  Croker  says 
'once  stood  the  house  of  Cipriani,'  the  designer.  But  there 
seems  to  be  some  doubt  as  to  the  exact  site  of  Cipriani's 
house,  for  in  Thome's  Environs  of  London  it  is  stated, 
'In  the  lane  opposite  to  Edith  Road  lived  Cipriani.'  Cipri- 
ani lived  in  England  from  1755  to  1785,  and  his  works 
were  largely  engraved  by  Bartolozzi,  who  also  had  a  house 
at  North  End,  and  who  is  mentioned  at  some  length  by 
Faulkner." 

Can  we  not  picture  the  delight  of  the  antiquarian, 
the  historian,  the  romancer  of  the  future  in  the  pos- 
session of  a  book  containing  such  information  ? 
And  it  was  Besant's  design  to  treat  all  London  in 
the  same  way.  The  perambulation  of  Fulham  goes 
on  to  give  brief  descriptions  of  such  various  things 
as  the  Queen's  Club  grounds,  the  Earl's  Court  Ex- 
hibition, Hurlingham,  and  Norman  (or  Normand) 
House;  while  considerable  space  is  devoted,  of 
course,  to  Fulham  Palace  and  Fulham  Parish  Church. 
Strype's  circuit-walk  about  Fulham  occupies  three 
columns  of  the  well-known  edition,  and  gives  merely 
an  account  of  the  bishop's  palace  and  the  church  and 
its  monuments.  Besant's  perambulation  of  Fulham 
is  over  twenty  times  as  long,  and  has  records  of  all 
sorts  of  buildings  and  institutions,  Fulham  having 
grown,  during  the  interval  between  the  walks  of  the 
two  chroniclers,  from  a  beautiful  little  village  to  a 
busy  and  thickly-populated  quarter  of  the  world's 
capital.  The  same  enormous  expansion  of  material 
had  to  be  dealt  with  at  every  point  of  the  compass  ; 
but  Besant  faced  the  tremendous  difficulties  with  reso- 


A     P  REFATO  RT    NOTE 

lution.  Well  may  he  say  in  his  autobiography  that 
he  considers  his  literary  work  in  regard  to  London 
no  inconsiderable  part  of  his  life's  labours.  For  a 
less  indefatigable  man,  what  he  managed  to  accom- 
plish of  the  Survey  would  have  sufficed  for  a  life- 
time of  effort ;  and  all  who  have  regard  for  Besant's 
memory  look  forward  to  hearing  that  arrangements 
have  been  made  for  completing  his  great  design. 

A  quality  of  Sir  Walter  Besant's  autobiography 
must  be  touched  upon —  its  modesty.  It  will  only 
be  touched  upon,  for  to  thrust  praise  upon  one  who 
shrank  so  from  praise  is  somewhat  of  an  outrage. 
The  modesty  in  his  autobiography  is  a  fault  that 
he  would  never  have  corrected,  and  throughout  his 
record,  of  his  life  he  studiously  underrates  himself, 
hardly  at  any  time  assuming  credit  for  aught  but 
industry.  He  regards  a  first-class  scholastic  career 
as  creditable;  his  success  at  Mauritius  is  barely 
alluded  to,  only  peeping  out  in  the  chance  admission 
that  the  rectorship  of  the  College  was  offered  to 
him  as  the  result  of  a  dispute  with  his  chief;  his 
account  of  his  share  in  the  collaboration  with  James 
Rice  is  pointedly  advantageous  to  Rice;  his  grati- 
tude for  the  place  that  he  won  in  literature  is  untinc- 
tured  by  a  trace  of  vanity  or  jealousy ;  he  forgets 
to  mention  his  knighthood,  and  is  silent  upon  that 
much  coveted  honour,  election  to  the  Athenaeum 
Club  under  Rule  II.  as  "a  person  who  has  attained 
to  a  distinguished  eminence  in  literature  " ;  on  his 
own  labours  of  love  in  behalf  of  the  Society  of 
Authors  he  has  practically  nothing  to  say. 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

He  gives  the  story  of  this  Society,  but  leaves  out 
as  far  as  possible  his  personal  share  in  that  story. 
The  self-sacrifice  and  devotion  that  he  displayed  in 
the  conduct  of  the  affairs  of  "  Our  beloved  Society," 
as  he  called  the  association  in  one  of  his  addresses, 
would  certainly  have  been  made  themes  for  lengthy 
notice  in  any  life  of  Besant  undertaken  by  another 
writer,  and  it  is  right  to  supplement  his  autobiog- 
raphy with  a  few  words  in  this  connection.  For  his 
attitude  towards  publisher  and  author  was  persis- 
tently misrepresented  or  misunderstood.  He  was 
generally  accused  of  a  sweeping  hatred  of  publishers, 
and  a  short-sighted  if  generous  desire  to  encourage 
incompetent  writers.  The  accusations  were  founded 
on  ignorance.  His  real  attitude  was  this  :  having 
asserted  that  ordinary  business  routine,  either  carried 
out  personally  or  by  an  accredited  agent,  cannot 
possibly  be  opposed  to  the  production  of  matter  of 
the  first  artistic  excellence,  he  set  to  work  to  make 
clear  the  principles  which  should  underlie  the  com- 
mercial relations  of  the  author  and  the  publisher. 
The  literary  merits  of  a  particular  author,  the  crystal 
probity  of  a  particular  publisher,  had  nothing  to  do 
with  the  case. 

When  the  earliest  business  done  by  the  Society 
of  Authors  made  it  clear  that  the  publishing  world 
—  like  every  other  trade  and  profession  —  contained 
a  few  black  sheep,  Besant  declared  that  customs 
which  allowed  them  a  chance  of  making  a  livelihood 
ought  to  be  discontinued  by  all  pubhshers.  It  is 
difficult  to  believe  that  any  right-minded  judgment 

xxiv 


A     P  RE  FA  T  O  RT    NOTE 

could  consider  such  a  view  to  be  dictated  either  by 
wholesale  and  sweeping  hatred  of  all  publishers,  or 
by  a  wish  to  make  the  path  of  the  incompetent 
writer  smoother.  Sir  Walter  Besant  was  chairman 
of  the  Society  of  Authors  on  three  separate  occa- 
sions, his  last  tenure  of  office  lasting  from  1887  to 
1892.  Until  the  day  of  his  death  the  affairs  of  the 
Society  formed  an  integral  part  of  his  life,  and  while 
he  was  chairman  the  amount  of  time  that  he  cheer- 
fully spent  upon  its  business  is  well-nigh  incredible. 
During  four  years  he  went  three  or  four  days  in  the 
week  to  the  office  of  the  Society,  prepared  to  dis- 
cuss every  imaginable  point  of  difficulty.  Nothing 
was  too  large  for  him  to  go  through  with,  nothing 
was  too  small  for  him  to  attend  to  that  bore  upon 
the  profession  of  letters.  He  became  accessible  to 
scores  of  persons  who  wasted  his  valuable  time 
simply  that  he  might  not  lose  a  chance  of  hearing 
a  case  where  he  could  do  good.  And  he  took  no 
credit  for  the  enormous  sacrifice  of  himself  and  the 
unceasing  call  upon  his  thoughts ;  on  the  contrary, 
if  an  opportunity  occurred,  he  gave  other  people 
the  praise. 

Mr.  Anthony  Hope,  speaking  for  the  Committee 
of  the  Society  of  Authors,  has  thus  expressed  their 
views :  — 

"  Faith,  zeal,  courage,  self-devotion  —  these  were  the 
great  qualities  which  he  brought  to  his  chosen  work — the 
work  of  developing  in  men  of  letters  a  sense  of  their  brother- 
hood, of  the  dignity  of  their  profession,  of  the  duty  of 
maintaining    steadfastly    its    independence    and    its    rights. 

XXV 


A    PREFATORY    NOTE 

What  he  warred  against  was,  in  his  own  words,  '  the  feel- 
ing, ridiculous,  senseless,  and  baseless,  that  it  is  beneath  the 
dignity  of  an  author  to  manage  his  business  affairs  as  a  man 
of  business  should,  with  the  same  regard  for  equity  in  his 
agreement,  the  same  resolution  to  know  what  is  meant  by 
both  sides  of  an  agreement,  and  the  same  jealousy  as  to 
assigning  the  administration  of  his  property.'  Against  the 
old  bad  way  —  the  hand-to-mouth  existence,  indolence  and 
ignorance  parading  as  the  superiority  of  genius,  a  slipshod 
negligence  that  ended  in  recrimination  and  wranglings,  he 
set  his  own  face  and  armed  his  comrades,  for  it  was  to  his 
comrades  in  the  first  instance  that  his  message  spoke. 
Their  fate  was  in  their  own  hands ;  it  was  in  their  power 
to  make  justice,  knowledge,  and  common  sense  prevail  in 
their  business  arrangements.  .  .  .  He  said,  '  I  can  at  least 
plead  that  I  have  always  placed  the  cause  before  any  other 
consideration.'  All  our  members  know  one  sense  in  which 
this  was  so  abundantly  true.  He  placed  it  before  his  ease 
and  his  leisure ;  for  its  sake  he  endured  violent  attack,  super- 
cilious comment,  ill-informed  criticism ;  for  it  he  suffered 
himself  to  be  represented  by  many  as  false  to  the  very 
thing  he  loved  best  of  all  —  the  true  and  highest  interests 
of  literature." 

To  this  fine  tribute  to  Besant's  unselfish  zeal  in 
behalf  of  his  craft,  no  one  can  desire  to  add  a  word; 
no  one  can  take  a  word  away  from  it  without  de- 
tracting from  its  accuracy. 

If  I  repeat  myself  it  is  because  the  purpose  of 
this  prefatory  note  is  to  make  clear  the  reason  of  cer- 
tain limitations  in  the  autobiography  which  follows. 
Sir  Walter  Besant  has  only  designed  to  describe  a 
working  novelist's  career;  he  expressly  says  that  he 

xxvi 


A     PREFATORY    NOTE 

is  not  making  confessions,  while  he  is  almost  silent 
upon  his  peaceful  and  happy  private  life.  The 
manuscript  which  he  left  behind  him  was  written  in 
the  last  year  of  his  life,  when  his  health  had  begun 
to  fail ;  and,  even  now  that  the  passages  which  he 
referred  to  definitely  as  requiring  insertion  have 
been  added,  the  work  is  not  as  he  would  have  let 
it  go  forth.  He  never  revised  the  manuscript  as  a 
whole,  an  important  fact,  because  it  was  his  habit 
to  make  considerable  corrections  in  all  his  written 
work.  Yet  it  is  certain  that  he  intended  his  auto- 
biography to  be  published.  For  my  own  part, 
though  I  am  sure  that  he  would  have  improved  the 
autobiography  in  certain  directions  if  he  could  have 
followed  the  promptings  of  second  thoughts,  I  am 
equally  sure  that  the  work  as  it  stands  must  have 
a  useful,  nay,  a  noble  influence.  A  scholar  who  was 
never  a  pedant,  a  beautiful  dreamer  who  was  a  prac- 
tical teacher,  a  modest  and  sincere  man  speaks  in  its 
pages,  and  teaches  with  conviction  a  brave  scheme 
of  life. 

S.   SQUIRE   SPRIGGE. 

United  University  Club. 


XXVll 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY 


OF 


SIR  WALTER  BESANT 

Chapter   I 

CHILD    AND    BOY 

ONE'S  birth,  as  to  period,  place,  social  posi- 
tion, connections  and  education,  should  be 
determined  by  every  man  for  himself  before 
the  event  in  accordance  with  the  career,  or  the  kind 
of  work,  destined  for  him  by  the  Gods.  I  am  sup- 
posing that  he  has  the  choice  offered  him,  together 
with  an  outline  of  the  future —  not  a  future  of  fate 
laid  down  with  Calvinistic  rigour,  but  a  future  of 
possibility.  And  as  time,  past  or  future,  does  not 
exist  in  the  other  world,  I  am  supposing  that  a  man 
can  be  born  in  any  age  that  he  pleases.  For  many 
reasons  I  myself,  though  I  speedily  forgot  the  cir- 
cumstances attendant  on  the  choice,  decided  —  quite 
rightly,  I  believe  —  that  the  nineteenth  century,  so 
far  as  1  could  judge  —  not  being  able  to  foretell  the 
twentieth  or  following  centuries  —  would  be  the 
most    favourable  time    for    a    person  like  myself. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

"  You,"  said  my  guardian  angel,  "  are  to  be  en- 
dowed with  certain  powers  of  imagination  which 
you  will  do  well  to  cultivate  ;  you  will  have  a  tol- 
erably good  memory,  which  you  will  also  cultivate, 
if  you  are  wise ;  in  good  hands  you  might  become 
a  scholar,  a  divine,  a  preacher,  a  journalist,  a  novel- 
ist, or  a  historian.  There  will  be  limits,  of  course, 
to  your  powers.  I  fear  that  to  you  will  not  be 
granted  the  supreme  gift  of  the  foremost  rank. 
But  you  will  do  what  you  can.  How  and  where 
and  when  will  you  please  to  be  born  ?  " 

A  difficult  choice.  If  a  man  is  to  be  a  statesman, 
he  should  be  born  in  such  a  station  as  would  enable 
him  to  take  a  place  in  the  front  at  any  time,  with 
the  feeling  that  command  and  leadership  belong  to 
him  ;  if  a  soldier,  then  he  should  be  of  a  family  con- 
nected with  the  Services,  and  not  wholly  without 
property.  If  a  man  is  to  become  a  clergyman, 
good  breeding,  good  manners,  and  a  public  school 
education  are  invaluable.  If  a  lawyer,  or  a  physi- 
cian, or  any  other  profession,  easy  manners  which 
come  from  good  breeding  are  always  a  help.  If 
on  the  other  hand  a  man  is  destined  to  be  a  writer 
of  the  kind  which  demands  imagination,  sym- 
pathy, observation,  then  he  should  ask  to  be  born 
neither  in  the  lowest  ruck  nor  in  the  upper  levels. 
For  in  the  former  case  the  manners  and  the  stan- 
dards of  the  people  would  become  part  and  parcel 
of  himself,  so  that  he  would  be  unable  to  separate 
himself  from  them,  or  to  describe  them,  or  to  un- 
derstand them  ;  while   in  the  latter  case   he  would 


SIR      TFALTER      BESANT 

have  no  chance  of  observing  or  knowing  how  those 
people  Hve  for  whom  getting  their  liveHhood  is  the 
first  and  most  important  consideration.  For  such 
a  writer  the  most  favourable  position  to  be  born  in 
is  that  of  the  so-called  middle  class,  where  one  is 
not  so  far  above  the  mass  as  not  to  know  or  to 
understand  something  of  their  thoughts  and  stan- 
dards, of  their  manners,  their  customs  and  their 
convictions  ;  and  where  one  is  yet  so  far  removed 
as  not  to  be  led  or  guided  by  them,  or  to  be  unable 
to  get  outside  their  prejudices.  For  much  the 
same  reason  one  would  not  choose  to  be  born  in 
London,  which  is  too  vast ;  in  London  a  child  of 
the  middle  class  grows  up  in  a  suburb,  where  he 
lives  among  respectable  folk,  and  gets  no  knowl- 
edge either  of  higher  society  or  lower.  There  have 
been,  It  is  true,  many  children  of  London  who 
have  achieved  greatness.  Not  to  speak  of  Chaucer 
and  Milton,  Ben  Jonson  and  Pope,  there  have 
been  such  writers  as  Charles  Lamb  and  Hood ; 
while  Dickens  and  Thackeray  also  were  practically 
Londoners,  but  in  the  days  before  suburban  dul- 
ness.  On  the  whole,  a  place  outside  London  would 
seem  preferable ;  that  place  not  to  be  a  quiet  vil- 
lage, but  a  busy  town,  with  its  own  distinctive  char- 
acter and  its  own  distinctive  people. 

These  arguments,  in  my  theory  of  free  and  ante- 
natal selection,  prevailed,  and  I  was  allowed  a  sea- 
port of  the  first  rank  as  the  place  of  birth  ;  the 
second  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century  as  the 
time  of  birth  ;  and  the  middle  class  for  the  social 

3 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

rank  from  which  to  start.  In  such  a  rank  one 
begins  by  looking  around  and  below,  but  not,  as  a 
rule,  above. 

I  have  no  doubt  in  my  own  mind  that  it  was 
also  by  choice  that  I  became  one  of  a  large  house- 
hold, so  that  the  rough  and  tumble  of  boys  and 
girls  together  might  knock  out  something  of  self- 
ishness and  something  of  conceit ;  a  family  where 
there  was  not  too  much  money,  and  where  economy 
was  practised  —  yet  without  privation  —  in  every 
thing;  and  where  one  understood  from  the  outset 
that  for  success,  if  success  was  desired  —  it  is  not 
every  boy  who  is  ambitious  —  there  would  have  to 
be  hard  work.  And  I  am  equally  certain  of  the 
benevolence  of  the  guardian  angel  when  I  consider 
that,  as  regards  work  among  books,  I  was  born  of 
an  industrious  turn  of  mind.  It  was,  again,  a  most 
wholesome  discipline  to  learn  from  childhood  that 
whatever  is  wanted  must  be  earned.  It  has  been 
my  lot  to  live  among  those  who  have  succeeded 
by  their  own  abilities  and  hard  work,  and  I  find,  as 
a  general  rule,  that  the  sons  of  such  men  have 
never  learned  this  wholesome  discipline,  but  have 
grown  up  in  the  belief  that  fortune's  choicest  gifts 
drop  into  the  laps  of  those  who  sit  and  sleep  in 
the  sunshine  and  wait. 

I  was  born,  then,  on  the  evening  of  Sunday, 
August  the  14th,  in  the  year  1836,  now  sixty-three 
years  ago,  the  place  being  that  known  as  St. 
George's  Square,  Portsea,  a  broad,  open  place  of 
irregular  shape  lying  on  the  east  of  the  Common 

4 


SIR      M^ALTER      BESANT 

Hard,  and  containing  a  curious,  sprawling  barn  of 
a  church  belonging  to  the  time  of  George  11. 
More  about  this  church  presently.  The  number 
of  the  house  where  I  saw  the  light  was,  I  believe, 
three.  I  was  the  fifth  child  and  the  third  son  of 
a  family  of  ten,  of  whom  nine  grew  up,  and  at  this 
moment,  January  1900,  seven  survive. 

Great  changes  have  taken  place  in  my  native 
town  since  my  early  recollections.  It  was,  in  my 
boyhood,  a  strangely  picturesque  place  in  its  own 
way.  There  was  no  other  town  in  England  at  all 
like  Portsmouth.  It  then  consisted  of  three  divi- 
sions :  the  old  Town  of  Portsmouth  ;  the  eighteenth- 
century  Town  of  Portsea ;  and  the  Quarter  called 
Point.  The  suburbs  of  Landport  and  Southsea 
were  already  growing  —  indeed,  Dickens  was  born 
at  Landport  in  the  year  1812  —  but  they  were 
small  places.  The  former  contained  a  dozen  streets, 
chiefly  of  a  humble  character,  with  a  crescent  of 
handsome  villas  standing  in  their  own  gardens  ;  the 
latter  contained  one  line  of  terraces,  with  a  main 
street  and  two  or  three  narrow  lanes.  The  terraces 
were  occupied  by  retired  Service  people  and  lodg- 
ing-house keepers  —  Southsea,  from  the  beginning, 
was  always  a  place  for  Service  people. 

There  are  no  ancient  buildings  at  all  in  Portsea, 
which  is  an  eighteenth-century  town,  or  in  the 
suburbs,  but  there  are  a  few  in  Portsmouth.  The 
Domus  Dei,  the  mediaeval  Hospital,  has  been  con- 
verted into  the  Garrison  Chapel ;  here  Charles  II. 
married  Catherine  of  Braganza.    The  old  church  of 

5 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

St.  Thomas,  with  its  ship  for  a  weathercock,  I 
always  regarded  with  veneration,  but  I  beUeve  that 
only  the  chancel  and  the  transepts  are  ancient. 
There  is  a  square  stone  tower  at  the  end  of  the 
High  Street,  with  a  gilt  bust  of  Charles  I.,  who 
landed  here  on  his  return  —  without  the  Infanta  — 
from  Spain.  There  were  a  few  wooden  houses  in 
Portsmouth,  and  in  my  boyhood  a  large  number  of 
low,  somewhat  picturesque  gabled  houses  belonging 
to  the  time  when  no  dwellings  were  allowed  to  be 
higher  than  the  town  walls.  One  of  them,  unless  I 
mistake,  still  survives. 

The  High  Street,  however,  possessed  the  charm 
of  a  certain  antiquity.  The  town  hall,  the  house 
where  the  Duke  of  Buckingham  was  murdered,  the 
quaint  little  Unitarian  chapel,  the  "George"  and 
*'  Fountain  "  inns,  the  red  brick  houses,  and  an  air 
of  quiet  and  dignity,  not  disturbed  by  recent  traffic, 
made  the  street  impressive.  But  the  glory  and  pride 
of  the  town  were  its  walls.  There  were  two  lines 
of  fortification,  that  of  Portsmouth  and  that  of  Port- 
sea.  One  the  other  side  of  the  harbour  was  a  third 
line,  the  walls  of  Gosport.  These  walls  were  con- 
structed on  the  well  known  system  with  a  scarp, 
counterscarp,  advanced  works,  a  moat,  gates  and 
bridges,  and  bastions  commanding  the  walls  in  flank 
and  planted  with  cannon.  A  broad  walk  ran  along 
the  top  of  the  walls,  with  a  parapet  from  which  the 
defender  would  fire  over  the  sloping  earthwork 
breast  high.  Trees  were  planted  along  the  broad 
walks  ;    upon  every  bastion    there  was   a    meadow 

6 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

with  a  grassy  down  slope;  and  at  intervals  there 
were  stone  watch  towers.  Between  the  walls  of 
Portsea  and  those  of  Portsmouth  was  a  broad  sheet 
of  water,  called  the  Mill  dam,  which  rose  and  fell 
with  every  tide  —  an  artificial  lake  constructed  with 
an  eye  to  the  fortifications.  It  had  a  causeway  run- 
ning across  it  and  an  island  in  the  middle  of  it.  The 
island  contained  a  bastion  and  a  small  house,  in 
which  resided  a  sergeant  and  his  family.  This 
island,  to  live  on  which  seemed  to  me  the  height 
of  happiness,  communicated  with  the  causeway 
by  means  of  an  iron  bridge.  The  walls,  with  the 
meadows  before  the  bastion,  the  moat,  the  counter- 
scarp, the  advanced  works  and  the  Mill  dam  occu- 
pied a  very  considerable  space.  Outside  the  whole 
a  clear  area  was  kept  on  which  no  houses  were  per- 
mitted to  be  built.  The  suburbs  of  Portsmouth, 
therefore,  were  unconnected  with  the  town  ;  they  lay 
beyond  this  clear  space.  The  walls  were  the  play- 
ground, the  park,  the  breathing  place  for  the 
children  and  the  boulevard  for  the  people.  Old 
and  young  walked  on  the  walls.  Nursemaids  took 
the  children  every  fine  day  to  the  walls.  They 
were  quite  safe,  for  if  a  child  rolled  down  the  slop- 
ing face  its  fall  was  over  grass  and  into  grass,  and  no 
harm  was  done.  The  little  boys  brought  hoops, 
and  ran  them  round  the  walls.  They  clambered 
about  the  bastions,  and  peered  into  the  mouths 
of  the  cannon,  and  sat  upon  the  gun-carriages,  and 
crept  out  fearfully  through  the  embrasures,  and, 
looking  over  into  the  moat  below,  played  at  seeing 

7 


AUTOBIOGRAPHIC      OF 

the  enemy  beyond  ;  or  they  ran  down  the  grassy 
slopes  to  the  meadows,  which  in  spring  were  spread 
with  a  golden  carpet  of  buttercups.  These  excur- 
sions were  illegal.  There  was  a  special  police  for 
the  walls  ;  it  consisted  of  three  or  four  men,  re- 
ported to  be  of  short  temper,  who  carried  canes, 
with  which  they  "  warmed "  boys  caught  in  the 
meadows  or  on  the  slopes.  These  guardians  were 
called  "  Johnnies,"  and  I  always  regarded  them  as 
unfortunate  men  of  a  misanthropic  turn  whose  oc- 
cupation, to  catch  and  "  warm  "  boys,  was  also  their 
pleasure.  But  as  regards  ourselves,  I  think  that 
measures  of  conciKation  had  been  adopted,  because 
we  seem  to  have  run  about  everywhere,  on  the 
slopes  or  over  the  meadows,  or  even  in  the  em- 
brasures, unmolested. 

One  ot  the  bastions  was  our  especial  delicrht.  It 
was  the  last  on  the  side  of  the  harbour ;  it  was  more 
secluded  than  the  others,  being  farther  from  the 
town,  and  few  children  found  their  way  to  it. 
They  called  it  the  Queen's  Bastion.  I  have 
described  the  place  in  one  of  my  novels  —  that 
called  By  Celias  Arbour.  It  is  not  doing  an  in- 
justice to  the  memory  of  my  collaborateur,  the  late 
James  Rice,  who  was  not  a  Portsmouth  man  and 
had  never  seen  the  place,  to  claim  that  part  of  the 
story  which  belongs  to  the  town  as  mv  own.  Let 
me  therefore  quote  a  little  from  that  book  :  — 

"  Our  playground  was  a  quiet  place,  especially  at  our 
end,  where  the  town  children,  to  whom  the  ramparts  else- 
where were  the  chief  place  of  recreation,  seldom  resorted. 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

There  were  earthworks  planted  with  trees  and  grass,  and 
the  meadows  beneath  were  bright  with  buttercups  and 
daisies.  We  were  privileged  children  ;  we  might  run  up 
and  down  the  slopes  or  on  the  ramparts,  or  through  the 
embrasures,  or  even  clamber  about  the  outer  scarp  down 
to  the  very  edge  of  the  moat,  without  rebuke  from  the 
*  Johnnies,'  the  official  guardians  of  the  walls,  who  went 
about  all  dav  armed  with  canes  to  keep  boys  from  tearing 
down  the  earthworks.  It  was  this  privilege,  as  well  as  the 
general  convenience  of  the  place  for  children  to  play  in, 
which  took  us  nearly  every  day  to  the  Queen's  Bastion. 
There  never  was  a  more  delightful  retreat.  In  summer 
the  trees  afforded  shade,  and  in  winter  the  rampart  gave 
shelter.  You  were  in  a  solitude  almost  unbroken,  close  to 
a  great  centre  of  life  and  busy  work  ;  you  looked  out  upon 
the  world  beyond,  where  there  were  fields,  gardens,  and 
trees ;  there  was  our  own  round  corner,  with  the  stately 
elms  above  us  ;  the  banks  of  grass,  all  sorts  of  grass,  as  one 
finds  where  there  is  no  cultivation,  trembling  grass,  fox- 
tail grass,  and  that  soft,  bushy  grass  for  which  we  had  no 
name;  there  was  the  gun  mounted  on  its  high  carriage, 
gazing  out  upon  the  harbour,  a  one-eyed  Polyphemus 
lono-inp;   for  human   food. 

"We  (Leonard,  Celia,  and  Ladislas  Pulaski,  who  tells 
the  story)  were  standing,  as  I  said,  in  the  north-west 
corner  of  the  Queen's  Bastion,  the  spot  where  the  grass 
was  longest  and  greenest,  the  wild  convolvulus  most 
abundant,  and  where  the  noblest  of  the  great  elms  which 
stood  upon  the  ramparts  — '  to  catch  the  enemy's  shells,' 
said  Leonard  —  threw  out  a  gracious  arm  laden  with  leafy 
foliage  to  give  a  shade.  We  called  the  place  Celia's 
Arbour. 

"  If  you   looked  out  over  the  parapet,  you  saw   before 

9 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

you  the  whole  of  the  most  magnificent  harbour  in  the 
world  ;  and  if  you  looked  through  the  embrasure  of  the 
wall,  you  had  a  splendid  framed  picture  —  water  for  fore- 
ground, old  ruined  castle  in  middle  distance,  blue  hill 
beyond,  and  above  blue  sky. 

"We  were  all  three  silent,  because  it  was  Leonard's 
last  evening  with  us.  He  was  going  away,  our  companion 
and  brother,  and  we  were  there  to  bid  him  God  speed. 

"It  was  after  eight;  suddenly  the  sun,  which  a  moment 
before  was  a  great  disc  of  burnished  gold,  sank  below  the 
thin  line  of  land  between  sky  and  sea. 

"Then  the  evening  gun  from  the  Duke  of  York's 
Bastion  proclaimed  the  death  of  another  day  with  a  loud 
report,  which  made  the  branches  in  the  trees  above  us  to 
shake  and  tremble.  And  from  the  barracks  in  the  town  j 
from  the  Harbour  Admiral's  flagship ;  from  the  Port 
Admiral's  flagship ;  from  the  flagship  of  the  Admiral  in 
command  of  the  Mediterranean  Fleet,  then  in  harbour; 
from  the  tower  of  the  old  church,  there  came  such  a  firing 
of  muskets,  such  a  beating  of  drums,  playing  of  fifes,  ring- 
ing of  bells,  and  sounding  of  trumpets,  that  you  would 
have  thought  the  sun  was  setting  once  for  all,  and  re- 
ceiving his  farewell  salute  from  a  world  he  was  leaving  for 
ever  to  roll  about  in  darkness. 

"  The  evening  gun  and  the  tintamarre  that  followed 
roused  us  all  three,  and  we  involuntarily  turned  to  look 
across  the  parapet.  Beyond  that  was  the  moat,  and 
beyond  the  moat  was  a  ravelin,  and  beyond  the  ravelin 
the  sea-wall ;  beyond  the  wall  a  smooth  and  placid  lake, 
for  it  was  high  tide,  four  miles  long,  and  a  couple  of  miles 
wide,  in  which  the  splendour  of  the  west  was  reflected  so 
that  it  looked  like  a  furnace  of  molten  metal.  At  low  tide 
it  would  have  been  a  great  flat  level  of  black  mud,  unlovely 

ID 


SIR      fFJLTER     BESANT 

even  with  an  evening  sky  upon  it,  intersected  with  creeks 
and  streams  which,  I  suppose,  were  kept  full  of  water  by 
the  drainage  of  the  mud-banks. 

"  At  the  end  of  the  harbour  stood  the  old  ruined  castle, 
on  the  very  margin  and  verge  of  the  water.  The  walls 
were  reflected  in  the  calm  bosom  of  the  lagoon ;  the  water- 
gate  opened  out  upon  the  wavelets  of  the  lapping  tide ; 
behind  rose  the  great  donjon,  square,  grey,  and  massive ; 
in  the  tourney-yard  stood  the  old  church,  and  we  needed 
no  telling  to  make  us  think  of  the  walls  behind,  four  feet 
broad,  rugged  and  worn  by  the  tooth  of  Time,  thickly 
blossoming  with  gilly-flowers,  clutched  and  held  on  all  sides 
by  the  tight  embrace  of  the  ivy.  There  had  been  rain  in 
the  afternoon,  so  that  the  air  was  clear  and  transparent, 
and  you  could  see  every  stone  in  the  grand  old  keep,  every 
dentation  of  the  wall. 

"Behind  the  castle  lay  the  low  curved  line  of  a  long 
hill,  green  and  grassy,  which  made  a  background  to  the 
harbour  and  the  old  fortress.  It  stretched  for  six  miles,  this 
hill,  and  might  have  been  monotonous  but  for  the  chalk 
quarries  which  studded  its  side  with  frequent  intervals  of 
white.  Farther  on,  to  the  west,  there  lay  a  village,  buried 
in  a  great  clump  of  trees,  so  that  you  could  see  nothing  but 
the  tower  of  a  church  and  the  occasional  smoke  of  a  chim- 
ney. The  village  was  so  far  off  that  it  seemed  like  some 
outlying  fort,  an  advance  work  of  civilisation,  an  outpost 
such  as  those  which  the  Roman  conquerors  have  left  in  the 
desert.  When  your  eye  left  the  village  among  the  trees 
and  travelled  southwards,  you  could  see  very  little  of  land 
on  the  other  side  by  reason  of  the  ships  which  intervened 
—  ships  of  every  age,  of  every  class,  of  every  colour,  of 
every  build  ;  frigates,  three-deckers,  brigs,  schooners,  cut- 
ters,    launches,     gunboats,     paddle-wheel  steamers,    screw 

II 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

steamers,  hulks  so  old  as  to  be  almost  shapeless  —  they 
were  lying  ranged  in  line,  or  they  were  moored  separately  ; 
some  in  the  full  flood  of  the  waning  sunset,  some  in 
shadow,  one  behind  the  other,  making  deep  blacknesses  in 
the  golden  water.  There  was  not  much  life  at  this  late 
hour  in  the  harbour.  Here  and  there  a  boat  pulled  by  two 
or  three  lads  from  the  town  ;  here  and  there  a  great  ship's 
gig,  moving  heavily  through  the  water,  pulled  by  a  crew 
of  sailors,  rowing  with  their  slow  and  measured  stroke,  and 
the  little  middy  sitting  in  the  stern  ;  or  perhaps  a  wherry 
coming  down  from  Fareham  Creek.  But  mostly  the  har- 
bour was  silent,  the  bustle  at  the  lower  end  having  ceased 
with  the  sunset." 

Later  on  it  was  a  practice  to  go  once  a  year  with 
a  small  party  to  Porchester.     The  visit  was  timed 

for  the  holiday  of  a  certain  D.  A ,  a  civil  servant 

of  some  department  in  London,  He  took  his  holi- 
day in  July  or  August,  and  used  to  join  our  little 
excursion,  which  he  made  merry  by  a  thousand 
jokes  and  quips  and  quirks.  He  was  always  in 
good  spirits  and  always  ready  with  a  laugh.  We 
got  to  Porchester  by  boat,  if  the  tide  served  ;  if  not, 
by  rail  part  of  the  way  and  walking  the  rest.  No 
one  can  ever  be  tired  of  Porchester.  There  are  the 
old  Roman  walls,  with  their  hollow  bastions.  One 
side  faces  the  harbour,  the  magnus  partus^  with  a 
water-gate ;  on  the  other  side  is  a  moat  of  Planta- 
genet  addition.  In  one  corner  is  a  long  narrow 
church  with  Saxon  details,  but  rebuilt  by  the  Nor- 
mans ;  in  its  churchyard  lie  not  only  the  bones  of 
men-at-arms  from  the  garrison  and  the  rude  fore- 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

fathers  of  the  hamlet,  but  also  those  of  hundreds  of 
French  prisoners  kept  here  during  the  long  war  of 
1795— 1 8 15,  A  whole  regiment  of  West  Indian 
negroes  —  prisoners  of  war  —  died  in  one  winter, 
and  were  buried  in  this  churchyard.  In  another 
corner  is  a  Norman  castle,  with  its  tall  keep  and  its 
inner  bastion.  On  our  annual  visit  we  began  by 
climbing  to  the  roof  of  the  keep  and  by  walking 
round  the  walls  and  looking  into  the  chambers ; 
this  done,  we  had  tea  in  one  of  the  houses  outside 
the  walls.  There  was  no  tea  like  the  Porchester 
tea  ;  no  bread  like  that  of  this  happy  village ;  no 
butter,  no  cake,  no  shrimps  comparable  with  theirs. 
After  tea  we  walked  home — seven  miles.  Pre- 
sently the  sun  went  down:  then  the  tall  trees  stood 
up  against  the  sky  like  giants  with  long  arms  threat- 
ening ;  the  air  became  mysterious,  charged  with 
sounds  the  meaning  of  which  we  could  not  catch  ; 
there  were  muffled  notes  of  birds  ;  silly  cockchafers 
buzzed  about  and  flew  in  our  faces.  The  party  be- 
came silent,  even  D.  A ceased  to  make  jokes  ; 

and  the  long  mysterious  march  in  the  summer  twi- 
light lingers  in  my  memory  for  the  solemn  joy,  the 
sense  of  mystery,  the  feeling  of  the  life  invisible 
which  fell  upon  one  at  least  of  that  small  company. 
My  father,  who  was  born  in  the  year  1800,  in  the 
first  month  of  the  last  year  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
could  remember  very  well  the  French  prisoners  at 
Porchester.  As  a  boy  he  would  take  a  boat  up  the 
harbour  and  go  to  the  castle  to  see  the  prisoners. 
He  spoke  of  their  vivacity,  their  little  industries  — 

13 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

they  made  all  kinds  of  ingenious  things  —  and  their 
friendliness  with  the  boys,  who  laughed  at  their 
lingo  and  tried  to  make  them  understand  English. 
Somewhere  about  the  year  1883  or  so,  I  wrote  a 
story  called  1'he  Holy  Rose^  in  which  1  laid  the  scene 
partly  in  the  village  and  castle  of  Porchester  :  — 

"  The  village  of  Porchester  is  a  place  of  great  antiquity, 
but  it  is  little,  and  except   for  its  old  Castle  of  no  account. 
Its  houses  are  all  contained  in  a  single  street,  beginning  at 
the  Castle-gate  and  ending  long  before  you  reach  the  Ports- 
mouth  and  Fareham   road,   which  is  only  a  quarter   of  a 
mile  from  the  Castle.      Most  of  them  are  mere  cottao-es, 
with  thatched   or   red-tiled    roofs,  but  they   are  not   mean 
or    squalid     cottages;    the    folk     are    well-to-do,    though 
humble,  and  every  house  in  the  village,   small  or  great,  is 
covered   all   over,   back   and    front,    with   climbing    roses. 
The  roses   cluster  over   the  porches,  they  climb  over  the 
red  tiles,  they  peep   into  the   latticed   windows,  they  cover 
and  almost  hide  the  chimney.      In  the  summer  months  the 
air  is  heavy  with  their  perfume ;   every  cottage  is   a  bower 
of  roses  ;  the  flowers  linger  sometimes  far  into  the  autumn, 
and  come  again  with  the  first   warm  days  of  June.     No- 
where in   the   country,   I   am   sure,  though   I  have  seen  a 
^t\N  other  places,  is  there  such  a  village  for  roses.      Apart 
from  its  flowers,  I  confess  that  the   place  has  little  worthy 
of  notice ;  it  cannot  even  show  a  church,  because  its  church 
is  within  the  Castle  walls,  and   quite  hidden  from  the  vil- 
lage.    The  Castle,  which,  now  that  the  long  wars  are  over, 
one  hopes  for  many  years,  is  silent  and  deserted,  its  ruined 
courts  empty,  its  crumbling  walls   left  to  decay,  presented 
a    different   appearance  indeed    in    the   spring   of  the  year 
1802.      For  in  those  days  it  was  garrisoned  by  two  regi- 

14 


SIR      TVALTER      BESANT 

ments  of    militia,    and    was    occupied    by  the   prodigious 
number  of  eight  thousand  prisoners. 

"  I  am  told  that  there  are  other  ancient  castles  in  the 
country  even  more  extensive  and  more  stately  than  Por- 
chester  ;  but  I  have  never  seen  them,  and  am  quite  satis- 
fied to  believe  that  for  grandeur,  extent,  and  the  awe  of 
antiquity,  there  can  be  none  which  can  surpass,  and  few 
which  can  pretend  to  equal,  this  monument.  It  is  cer- 
tainly ruinous  in  parts,  yet  still  so  strong  as  to  serve  for  a 
great  prison,  but  it  is  not  overthrown,  and  its  crumbling 
walls,  broken  roofs,  and  dismantled  chambers  surround  the 
place  with  a  solemnity  which  affects  the  most  careless 
visitor. 

''It  is  so  ancient  that  there  are  some  who  pretend  that 
parts  of  it  may  belong  to  British  times,  while  it  is  certain 
that  the  whole  of  the  outer  wall  was  built  by  the  Romans. 
In  imitation  of  their  camps,  it  stands  four-square,  and  has 
hollow  round  towers  in  the  sides  and  at  the  corners.  The 
spot  was  chosen,  not  at  the  mouth  of  the  harbour — the 
Britons  having  no  means  of  attacking  ships  entering  or 
going  out  —  but  at  the  very  head  of  the  harbour,  where  the 
creek  runs  up  between  the  shallows,  which  are  banks  of 
mud  at  low  water.  Hither  came  the  Roman  galleys,  laden 
with  military  stores,  to  land  them  under  the  protection  of 
the  Castle.  When  the  Romans  went  away,  and  the 
Saxons  came,  who  loved  not  fighting  behind  walls,  they 
neglected  the  fortress,  but  built  a  church  within  the  walls, 
and  there  laid  their  dead.  When  in  their  turn  the  Nor- 
mans came,  they  built  a  castle  after  their  own  fashion, 
within  the  Roman  walls.  This  is  the  stronghold,  con- 
taining four  square  towers  and  a  fortified  entrance.  And 
the  Normans  built  the  water-gate,  and  the  gate-tower. 
The  rest  of  the  great  space  became  the  outer  bailey  of  the 

IS 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

Castle.     Thev  also  added  battlements  to  the  wall,  and  dug 
a  moat,  which  they  iilled  with  sea-water  at  high  tide. 

"The  battlements  of  the  Normans  are  now  broken 
down  or  crumbling  away ;  great  patches  of  the  rubble 
work  have  fallen  here  and  there.  Yet  one  can  walk  round 
the  narrow  ledge  designed  for  the  bowmen.  The  wall  is 
crowned  with  waving  grass  and  wallflowers,  and  up  the 
sides  grow  elder-bushes,  blackberr^^,  ivy,  and  bramble,  as 
luxuriantly  as  in  any  hedge  beyond  Portsdown,  If  you 
step  out  through  the  water-gate,  which  is  now  roofless, 
with  little  left  to  show  its  former  splendour,  except  a 
single  massive  column,  you  will  find,  at  high  tide,  the 
water  lapping  the  lowest  stones  of  the  towers,  just  as  it 
did  when  the  Romans  built  them.  Instead  of  the  old 
galleys,  which  must  have  been  light  in  draught  to  come  up 
Porchester  Creek,  there  are  now  lying  half  a  dozen  boats, 
the  whole  fleet  of  the  little  viUage.  On  the  other  side 
of  the  water  are  the  wooded  islets  of  Great  and  Little 
Horsea,  and  I  suppose  they  look  to-day  much  as  thev  did 
a  thousand  years  ago.  On  this  side  you  look  towards  the 
east ;  but  if  you  get  to  the  south  side  of  the  Castle,  and 
walk  across  a  narrow  meadow  which  lies  between  the  wall 
and  the  sea,  you  have  a  verv  different  view.  For  you 
look  straight  across  the  harbour  to  its  very-  mouth,  three 
miles  away ;  you  gaze  upon  a  forest  of  masts  and  upon 
ships  of  every  kind,  from  the  stately  man-o'-war  to  the 
saucy  pink,  and,  twenty  years  ago,  of  every  nation  — 
because,  in  those  days,  we  seemed  at  war  with  half  the 
world  —  from  the  French-built  frigate,  the  most  beautiful 
ship  that  floats,  to  the  Mediterranean  xebecque,  all  of  them 
prizes.  Here  they  lie,  some  readv  for  sea,  some  just  ar- 
rived, some  battered  by  shot,  some  newly  repaired  and 
fresh   from   the    yard ;    some  —  it   seems   a  cruel    fate  for 

i6 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

ships  which  have  fought  the  battles  of  their  country  — 
converted  into  hulks  for  convicts  and  for  prisoners;  some 
store-ships  —  why,  there  is  no  end  to  the  number  and  the 
kind  of  the  ships  lying  in  the  harbour.  They  could  tell, 
if  they  could  speak,  of  many  a  battle  and  manv  a  storm  ; 
some  of  them  are  as  old  as  the  days  of  Admiral  Benbow ; 
one  poor  old  hulk  is  so  old  that  she  was  once  a  man-o'-war 
in  the  Dutch  wars  of  Charles  II.,  and  carried  on  board,  it 
is  said,  the  Duke  of  York  himself." 

I  have  put  so  much  of  my  own  childhood  into 
that  book  that  I  must  quote  from  it  again  presently. 

Shortly  after  this  story  appeared  I  received  a 
visit  from  a  lady  who  told  me  a  little  anecdote  and 
made  me  a  little  present.  "  In  the  year  1803,"  she 
said,  with  the  solemnity  and  importance  which  be- 
longed to  w^hat  she  was  about  to  give  me,  "  when 
the  war  broke  out  again  and  Napoleon  detained  all 
the  English  travellers  or  visitors  in  France,  my  very 
dear  old  triend  X.  Y.  was  engaged  to  be  married. 
Her  lover,  however,  who  was  then  in  Paris,  was 
taken  prisoner,  although  a  civilian,  and  made  to  live 
at  Verdun  for  eleven  long  years.  The  marriage  was 
put  off  until  he  regained  his  liberty.  Meantime  my 
friend,  with  a  fellow  feeling  for  all  prisoners,  took 
lodgings  at  Portsmouth,  and  went  by  boat  to  Por- 
chester  Castle  every  day.  Here  she  occupied  her- 
self, being  the  kindest  and  dearest  of  all  women,  in 
nursing  the  sick  prisoners  until  the  Peace  of  18 14 
restored  her  lover.  Among  other  things  which,  at 
her  death,  she  bequeathed  me,  was  a  collection  of 
things  made  by  the  French  prisoners,  and  either 
*  17 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

bought  by  her  or  given  to  her.  Among  them  is  a 
dainty  httle  box  made  of  straw,  with  a  piece  of 
looking-glass  in  the  lid.  As  you  have  written  a 
story  about  the  prisoners,  I  have  brought  it,  and 
now  give  it  to  you.  I  want  you  to  give  it  to  your 
eldest  daughter,  and  I  will  ask  her  to  keep  it  in 
memory  of  those  poor  prisoners  and  my  dear  friend 
who  helped  them." 

A  pretty  story  and  a  pretty  gift.  I  gave  it  to  my 
daughter,  who  keeps  it  among  her  treasures. 

In  childhood,  however,  these  things  were  as  yet 
distant.  It  was  enough  to  climb  on  the  gun-carriage 
and  to  look  out  across  the  harbour  upon  the  Castle 
and  the  Hill.  There  were  flowers  on  the  walls  : 
the  little  pimpernel;  the  daisy;  the  buttercup  ;  the 
dandelion  (which  was  not  to  be  picked,  for  some 
superstition)  ;  and,  above  all,  the  sweet  and  fragrant 
flower  that  we  called  the  wild  lily — the  wild  con- 
volvulus. This  grew  everywhere ;  on  all  the  slopes 
and  among  all  the  bastions  we  gathered  it  by  hand- 
fuls.  I  have  always  loved  the  perfume  of  this  sweet 
flower.  To  this  day,  when  I  gather  one  of  these 
flowers  the  fragrance  sends  me  back  to  that  old 
bastion,  and  I  am  once  more  standing,  hoop  in  hand, 
looking  across  the  harbour,  my  childish  brain  full  of 
fancies  and  wonderings  and  vague  longings,  and  a 
sense  which  has  never  left  me  that  life  is  a  great  and 
wonderful  gift,  and  that  the  Lord  made  his  children 
for  happiness.  I  do  not  say  that  this  fine  sentiment 
was  clothed  in  words.  But  it  was  there  —  one  of 
the  long,  long  thoughts  of  childhood. 

i8 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

In  my  novel  By  Celias  Arbour,  the  narrator  was 
a  Pole,  a  son  of  one  of  the  Polish  exiles.  I  placed 
him  under  the  care  of  a  sailor's  widow  —  a  washer- 
woman—  in  order  to  describe  the  quarter;  it  was 
in  Portsea,  about  which  I  rambled  as  a  boy, 
looking  at  the  odd  and  pretty  things  which  the 
sailors  brought  home,  and  their  wives  put  in  the 
windows. 

"  Mrs.  Jeram  was  a  weekly  tenant  in  one  of  a  row  of 
small  four-roomed  houses  known  as  Victory  Row,  which 
led  out  of  Nelson  Street,  and  was  a  broad,  blind  court, 
bounded  on  one  side  and  at  the  end  by  the  Dockyard  wall. 
It  was  not  a  dirty  and  confined  court,  but  quite  the  reverse, 
being  large,  clean,  and  a  very  Cathedral  Close  for  quiet- 
ness. The  wall,  built  of  a  warm  red  brick,  had  a  broad 
and  sloping  top,  on  which  grew  wallflowers,  long  grasses, 
and  stonecrop ;  overhanging  the  wall  was  a  row  of  great 
elms,  in  the  branches  of  which  there  was  a  rookery,  so  that 
all  day  long  you  could  listen,  if  you  wished,  to  the  talk  of 
the  rooks.  Now  this  is  never  querulous,  angry,  or  argu- 
mentative. The  rook  does  not  combat  an  adversary's 
opinion  ;  he  merely  states  his  own ;  if  the  other  one  does 
not  agree  with  him  he  states  it  again,  but  without  temper. 
If  you  watch  them  and  listen,  you  will  come  to  the  con- 
clusion that  they  are  not  theorists,  like  poor  humans,  but 
simply  investigators  of  fact.  It  has  a  restful  sound,  the 
talk  of  rooks  ;  you  listen  in  the  early  morning,  and  they 
assist  your  sleeping  half-dream  without  waking  you  ;  or  in 
the  evening  they  carry  your  imagination  away  to  woods  and 
sweet  country  glades.  They  have  cut  down  the  elms  now, 
and  driven  the  rooks  to  find  another  shelter.  Very  likely, 
in  their  desire  to  sweep  away  everything  that  is  pretty,  they 

19 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

have  torn  the  wallflowers  and  grasses  off  the  wall  as  well. 
And  if  these  are  gone,  no  doubt  Victory  Row  has  lost  its 
only  charm.  If  I  were  to  visit  it  now,  I  should  proba- 
bly find  it  squalid  and  mean.  The  eating  of  the  tree  of 
knowledge  so  often  makes  things  that  once  we  loved  look 
squalid. 

"  But  to  childhood  nothing  is  unlovely  in  which  the 
imagination  can  light  upon  something  to  feed  it.  It  is  the 
blessed  province  of  all  children,  high  and  low,  to  find 
themselves  at  the  gates  of  Paradise,  and  quite  certainly 
Tom  the  Piper's  son,  sitting  under  a  hedge  with  a  raw 
potato  for  plaything,  is  every  bit  as  happy  as  a  little  Prince 
of  Wales.  The  possibilities  of  the  world  which  opens  out 
before  us  are  infinite  ;  while  the  glories  of  the  world  we 
have  left  behind  are  still  clinging  to  the  brain,  and  shed  a 
supernatural  colouring  on  everything.  At  six,  it  is  enough 
to  live  ;  to  awake  in  the  morning  to  the  joy  of  another 
day  ;  to  eat,  sleep,  play,  and  wonder ;  to  revel  in  the 
vanities  of  childhood ;  to  wanton  in  make-belief  superi- 
ority ;  to  admire  the  deeds  of  bigger  children  ;  to  emulate 
them,  like  Icarus;  and  too  often,  like  that  greatly  daring 
youth,  to  fall. 

"Try  to  remember,  if  you  can,  something  of  the  mental 
attitude  of  childhood ;  recall,  if  you  may,  some  of  the  long 
thoughts  of  early  days.  To  begin  with — God  was  quite 
close  to  you,  up  among  the  stars ;  He  was  seated  some- 
where, ready  to  give  you  whatever  you  wanted ;  everybody 
was  a  friend,  and  everybody  was  occupied  all  day  long 
about  your  personal  concerns';  you  had  not  yet  arrived  at 
the  boyishness  of  forming  plans  for  the  future.  You  were 
still  engaged  in  imitating,  exercising,  wondering.  Every 
man  was  a  demi-god  —  you  had  not  yet  arrived  at  the 
consciousness  that  you   might  become  yourself  a  man;   the 

20 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

resources  of  a  woman  —  to  whom  belong  bread,  butter, 
sugar,  cake,  and  jam — were  unbounded;  everything  that 
you  saw  was  full  of  strange  and  mysterious  interest.  You 
had  not  yet  learned  to  sneer,  to  criticise,  to  compare,  and 
to   down-cry. 

"Mrs.  Jeram's  house,  therefore,  in  my  eyes,  contained 
everything  the  heart  of  man  could  crave  for.  The  green- 
painted  door  opened  into  a  room  which  was  at  once 
reception-room,  dining-room,  and  kitchen  ;  furnished,  too, 
though  that  I  did  not  know,  in  anticipation  of  the  present 
fashion,  having  plates  of  blue  and  white  china  stuck  round 
the  walls.  The  walls  were  built  of  that  warm  red  brick 
which  time  covers  with  a  coating  of  grey-like  moss.  You 
find  it  everywhere  among  the  old  houses  of  the  south  of 
England ;  but  I  suppose  the  clay  is  all  used  up,  because  I 
see  none  of  it  in  the  new  houses. 

"We  were  quite  respectable  people  in  Victory  Row;  of 
that  I  am  quite  sure,  because  Mrs.  Jeram  would  have  made 
the  place  much  too  lively,  by  the  power  and  persistence  of 
her  tongue,  for  other  than  respectable  people.  We  were 
seafaring  folk,  of  course ;  and  in  every  house  was  some- 
thing strange  from  foreign  parts.  To  this  day  I  never  see 
anything  new  in  London  shops  or  in  museums  without  a 
backward  rush  of  associations  which  lands  me  once  more 
in  Victoiy  Row ;  for  the  sailors'  wives  had  all  these  things 
long  ago,  before  inland  people  ever  heard  of  them.  There 
were  Japanese  cabinets,  picked  up  in  Chinese  ports  long 
before  Japan  was  open ;  there  was  curious  carved  wood 
and  ivory  work  from  Canton.  These  things  were  got 
during  the  Chinese  war.  And  there  was  a  public-house  in 
a  street  hard  by  which  was  decorated,  instead  of  with  a  red 
window-blind,  like  other  such  establishments,  with  a  splen- 
did   picture    representing    some    of  the    episodes    in    that 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

struggle :  all  the  Chinese  were  running  away  in  a  dis- 
graceful stampede,  while  Jack  Tar,  running  after  them, 
caught  hold  of  their  pigtails  with  the  left  hand,  and  deftly 
cut  ofF  their  heads  with  the  right,  administering  at  the  same 
time  a  frolicsome  kick.  John  Chinaman's  legs  were 
generally  both  off  the  ground  together,  such  was  his  fear. 
Then  there  were  carved  ostrich  eggs ;  wonderful  things 
from  the  Brazils  in  feathers;  frail  delicacies  in  coral  from 
the  Philippines,  known  as  Venus's  flower-baskets ;  grue- 
some-looking cases  from  the  West  Indies,  containing 
centipedes,  scorpions,  beetles,  and  tarantulas ;  small  turtle 
shells,  dried  flying-fish,  which  came  out  in  moist  exudations 
during  wet  weather,  and  smelt  like  haddock ;  shells  of  all 
kinds,  big  and  little ;  clubs,  tomahawks,  and  other  queer 
weapons,  carved  in  wood,  from  the  Pacific ;  stuffed  hum- 
ming-birds, and  birds  of  Paradise.  There  were  live  birds, 
too  —  avvadavats,  Java  sparrows,  love-birds,  parroquets, 
and  parrots  in  plenty.  There  was  one  parrot,  at  the 
corner  house,  which  affected  the  ways  of  one  suffering 
from  incurable  consumption  —  he  was  considered  intensely 
comic  by  children  and  persons  of  strong  stomach  and  small 
imagination.  There  were  parrots  who  came,  stayed  a  little 
while,  and  then  were  taken  away  and  sold,  who  spoke 
foreign  tongues  with  amazing  volubility,  who  swore  worse 
than  Cresset's  Vert  Vert,  and  who  whistled  as  beautifully 
as  a  boatswain — the  same  airs,  too.  The  specimens 
which  belonged  to  Art  or  inanimate  Nature  were  ranged 
upon  a  table  at  the  window.  They  generally  stood  or 
were  grouped  round  a  large  Bible,  which  it  was  a  point  of 
ceremonial  to  have  in  the  house.  The  live  birds  were 
hung  outside  in  sunny  weather,  all  except  the  parrot  with 
the  perpetual  cold,  who  walked  up  and  down  the  court  by 
himself  and  coughed.      The  streets  surrounding  us  were, 

22 


SIR      fVALTER      BESANT 

like  our  own,  principally  inhabited  by  mariners  and  their 
families,  and  presented  similar  characteristics;  so  that  one 
moved  about  in  a  great  museum,  open  for  general  inspection 
during  daylight,  and  free  for  all  the  world.  Certain  I  am 
that  if  all  the  rare  and  curious  things  displayed  in  these 
windows  had  been  collected  and  preserved,  the  town 
would  have  had  a  most  characteristic  and  remarkable 
museum  of  its  own. 

"  Among  my  early  friends  were  one  or  two  of  the  Polish 
exiles  and  refugees  who  lived  at  Portsmouth  and  were  pen- 
sioned by  our  Government.  The  man  called  Wassielewski 
was  my  especial  friend. 

"  They  had  a  great  barrack  all  to  themselves,  close  to 
the  walls,  whither  I  used  to  be  sometimes  carried.  It  was 
a  narrow  building,  built  of  black-tarred  wood,  with  windows 
at  both  sides,  so  that  you  saw  the  light  quite  through  the 
house. 

"  It  stood  just  under  the  walls,  almost  in  the  shade  of 
the  great  elms.  Within  it  were  upwards  of  a  hundred 
Poles,  living  chiefly  on  the  tenpence  a  day  which  the  Eng- 
lish Government  allowed  them  for  their  support,  with  this 
barn-like  structure  to  house  them.  They  were  desperately 
poor,  all  of  them  living  mostly  on  bread  and  frugal  cabbage- 
soup.  Out  of  their  poverty,  out  of  their  tenpence  a  day, 
some  of  these  poor  fellows  found  means  by  clubbing  to- 
gether to  pay  Mrs.  Jeram,  week  by  week,  for  my  support. 
They  went  hungry  that  I  might  eat  and  thrive  ;  they  came 
every  day,  some  of  them,  to  see  that  I  was  well  cared  for. 
They  took  me  to  their  barrack,  and  made  me  their  pet 
and  plaything ;  there  was  nothing  they  were  not  ready  to  do 
for  me,  because  I  was  the  child  of  Roman  Pulaski  and 
Claudia  his  wife. 

"  The  one  who  came  oftenest,  stayed  the  longest,  and 

23 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

seemed  in  an  especial  manner  to  be  my  guardian,  was  a 
man  who  was  grey  when  I  first  remember  him.  He  had 
long  hair  and  a  full  grey  beard.  There  was  a  great  red 
gash  in  his  cheek,  which  turned  white  when  he  grew  ex- 
cited or  was  moved.  He  limped  with  one  foot,  because 
some  musket  ball  had  struck  him  in  the  heel;  and  he  had 
singularly  deep-set  eyes,  with  heavy  eyebrows.  I  have  never 
seen  anything  like  the  sorrowfulness  of  Wassielewski's  eyes. 
Other  Poles  had  reason  for  sorrow.  They  were  all  exiles 
together,  they  were  separated  from  their  families,  without 
a  hope  that  the  terrible  Nicolas,  who  hated  a  rebel  Pole 
with  all  the  strength  of  his  autocratic  hatred,  would  ever  let 
them  return  ;  they  were  all  in  poverty,  but  these  men  looked 
happy.  Wassielewski  alone  never  smiled,  and  carried  al- 
ways that  low  light  of  melancholy  in  his  eyes,  as  if  not  only 
the  past  was  sad,  but  the  future  was  charged  with  more 
sorrow.  On  one  day  in  the  year  he  brought  me  immortelles^ 
tied  with  a  black  ribbon.  He  told  me  they  were  in  memory 
of  my  father,  Roman  Pulaski,  now  dead  and  in  heaven,  and 
of  my  mother,  also  dead,  and  now  sitting  among  the  saints 
and  martvrs.  I  used  to  wonder  at  those  times  to  see  the 
eyes  which  rested  on  me  so  tenderly  melt  and  fill  with  tears. 
"  My  early  childhood,  spent  among  these  kindly  people, 
was  thus  very  rich  in  the  things  which  stimulate  the  ima- 
gination. Strange  and  rare  objects  in  every  house,  in  every 
street  something  from  far-off  lands,  talk  to  be  heard  of 
foreign  ports  and  bygone  battles,  the  poor  Poles  in  their 
bare  and  gaunt  barracks,  and  then  the  place  itself.  I  have 
spoken  of  the  rookery  beyond  the  flower-grown  Dockyard 
wall.  But  beyond  the  rookery  was  the  Dockyard  itself, 
quiet  and  orderly,  which  I  could  see  from  the  upper 
window  of  the  house.  There  was  the  Long  Row,  where 
resided  the   Heads  of   Departments ;    the  Short    Row,  in 

24 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  J  N  T 

which  lived  functionaries  of  lower  rank  —  I  believe  the  two 
Rows  do  not  know  each  other  in  society  ;  there  was  the 
great  reservoir,  supported  on  tall  and  spidery  legs,  beneath 
which  stood  piles  of  wood  cut  and  dressed,  and  stacked  for 
use  ;  there  was  the  Rope  Walk,  a  quarter  of  a  mile  long,  in 
which  I  knew  walked  incessantly  up  and  down  the  workmen 
who  turned  hanks  of  yarn  into  strong  cables  smelling  of 
fresh  tar;  there  were  the  buildings  where  other  workmen 
made  blocks,  bent  beams,  shaped  all  the  parts  of  ships ; 
there  were  the  great  places  where  they  made  and  repaired 
machinery  ;  there  were  the  sheds  themselves,  where  the 
mighty  ships  grew  slowly  day  by  day,  miracles  of  man's 
constructive  skill,  in  the  dim  twilight  of  their  wooden 
cradles  ;  there  was  a  pool  of  sea  water  in  which  lay  timber 
to  be  seasoned,  and  sometimes  I  saw  boys  paddling  up  and 
down  in  it ;  there  was  always  the  busy  crowd  of  officers  and 
sailors  going  up  and  down,  some  of  them  god-like,  with 
cocked  hats,  epaulettes  and  swords. 

"  And  all  day  long,  never  ceasing,  the  busy  sound  of  the 
Yard.  To  strangers  and  visitors  it  was  just  a  confused 
and  deafening  noise.  When  you  got  to  know  it,  you  dis- 
tinguished half-a-dozen  distinct  sounds  which  made  up  that 
inharmonious  and  yet  not  unpleasing  whole.  There  was 
the  chatter  of  the  caulkers'  mallets,  which  never  cease 
their  tap,  tap,  tap,  until  you  got  used  to  the  regular  beat, 
and  felt  it  no  more  than  you  feel  the  beating  of  your  pulse. 
But  it  was  a  main  part  of  the  noise  which  made  the  life  of 
the  Yard.  Next  to  the  multitudinous  mallets  of  the 
caulkers,  which  were  like  the  never-ceasing  hum  and 
whisper  of  insects  on  a  hot  day,  came  the  loud  clanging 
of  the  hammer  from  the  boiler-makers'  shop.  That  might 
be  likened,  by  a  stretch  of  fancy,  to  the  crowing  of  cocks 
in  a   farmyard.     Then,  all  by  itself,  came  a   heavy  thud 

25 


AUrOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

which  made  the  earth  tremble,  echoed  all  around,  and 
silenced  for  a  moment  everything  else.  It  came  from  the 
Nasmyth  steam  hammer ;  and  always  running  through  all, 
and  yet  distinct,  the  r-r-r-r  of  the  machinery,  like  the  rus- 
tling of  the  leaves  in  the  wind.  Of  course  I  say  nothing 
about  salutes,  because  every  day  a  salute  of  some  kind  was 
thundering  and  rolling  about  the  air  as  the  ships  came  and 
went,  each  as  tenacious  of  her  number  of  guns  as  an  Indian 
Rajah. 

"Beyond  the  Dockyard  —  you  could  not  see  it,  but  you 
felt  it,  and  knew  that  it  was  there  —  was  the  broad  blue  lake 
of  the  harbour,  crowded  with  old  ships  sacred  to  the  mem- 
ory of  a  hundred  fights,  lying  in  stately  idleness,  waiting 
for  the  fiat  of  some  ignorant  and  meddling  First  Lord 
ordering  them  to  be  broken  up.  As  if  it  were  anything 
short  of  wickedness  to  break  up  any  single  ship  which  has 
fought  the  country's  battles  and  won  her  victories,  until  the 
tooth  of  Time,  aided  by  barnacles,  shall  have  rendered  it 
impossible  for  her  to  keep  afloat  any  longer. 

"  When  the  last  bell  rang  at  six  o'clock,  and  the  work- 
men went  away,  all  became  quiet  in  the  Dockyard.  A 
great  stillness  began  suddenly,  and  reigned  there  till  the 
morning,  unbroken  save  by  the  rooks  which  cawed  in  the 
elms,  and  the  clock  which  struck  the  hours.  And  then 
one  had  to  fall  back  on  the  less  imaginative  noises  of  Vic- 
tory Row,  where  the  parrot  coughed,  and  the  grass  widows 
gathered  together,  talking  and  disputing  in  shrill  concert, 
and  Leonard  fought  Moses  before  going  to  bed,  not  with- 
out some  din  of  battle." 

In   the   same   novel   I   have  described  the  Com- 
mon Hard,  as   I   remember  it  in  my  childhood  as 

follows  :  — 

26 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

"  The  Common  Hard  is  still,  after  all  the  modern 
changes,  a  street  with  a  distinct  character  of  its  own. 
The  houses  still  look  out  upon  the  bright  and  busy  har- 
bour, though  there  is  now  a  railway  terminus  and  an  ugly 
pier;  though  steam  launches  run  across  the  water;  and 
though  there  are  telegraph  posts,  cabs,  and  omnibuses,  all 
the  outward  signs  of  advanced  civilisation.  But  thirty 
years  ago  it  was  a  place  which  seemed  to  belong  to  the 
previous  century.  There  were  no  great  houses  and  hand- 
some shops,  but  in  their  place  a  picturesque  row  of  ir- 
regular cottages,  no  two  of  which  were  exactly  alike,  but 
which  resembled  each  other  in  certain  particulars.  They 
were  two-storeyed  houses  ;  the  upper  storey  was  very  low, 
the  ground-floor  was  below  the  level  of  the  street.  I  do 
not  know  why,  but  the  fact  remains  that  in  my  town  the 
ground-floors  of  all  the  old  houses  were  below  the  level 
of  the  pavement.  You  had  to  stoop,  if  you  were  tall,  to 
get  into  the  doorway,  and  then,  unless  you  were  experi- 
enced, you  generally  fell  headlong  down  a  step  of  a  foot 
or  so.  Unless  the  houses  were  shops  they  had  only  one 
window  below  and  one  above,  because  the  tax  on  windows 
obliged  people  to  economise  their  light.  The  roofs  were 
of  red  tiles,  high-pitched,  and  generally  broken-backed ; 
stone-crop  and  house-leek  grew  upon  them.  The  Hard 
existed  then  only  for  the  sailors.  There  were  one  or  two 
jewellers  who  bought  as  well  as  sold  ;  many  public-houses, 
and  a  plentiful  supply  of  rascally  pay-agents.  That  side 
had  little  interest  for  boys.  In  old  times  the  high  tide  had 
washed  right  up  to  the  foot  of  these  houses,  which  then 
stood  upon  the  beach  itself.  But  they  built  a  stone  wall, 
which  kept  back  the  water,  and  allowed  a  road  to  be  made, 
protected  by  an  iron  railing.  An  open  space  gave  access 
to  what  was  called  the  '  beach,'  being  a  narrow   spit   of 

27 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

land,  along  which  were  ranged  on  either  side  the  wherries 
of  the  boatmen.  A  wooden  bench  was  placed  along  the 
iron  railings  near  the  beach,  on  which  sat  every  day  and 
all  day  long  old  sailors,  in  a  row.  It  was  their  club,  their 
daily  rendezvous,  the  place  where  they  discussed  old  battles, 
smoked  pipes,  and  lamented  bygone  days.  They  never 
seemed  to  walk  about  or  to  care  much  where  they  sat. 
They  sat  still,  and  sat  steadily,  in  hot  weather  and  in  cold. 
The  oddest  thing  about  this  line  of  veterans  was  that  they 
all  seemed  to  have  wooden  legs.  There  was,  or  there 
exists  in  my  memory,  which  is  the  same  thing,  a  row  of 
wooden  pegs  which  did  duty  for  the  lost  legs,  sticking  out 
straight  in  front  of  the  bench  when  they  were  on  it.  The 
effect  of  this  was  very  remarkable.  Some,  of  course,  had 
lost  other  outlying  bits  of  the  human  frame  ;  a  hand,  the 
place  supplied  by  a  hook,  like  that  of  Cap'en  Cuttle,  whose 
acquaintance  I  formed  later  on  ;  a  whole  arm,  its  absence 
marked  by  the  empty  sleeve  sewn  to  the  front  of  the 
jersey  ;  and  there  were  scars  in  plenty.  Like  my  friends 
the  Poles,  these  heroes  had  gained  their  scars  and  lost  their 
limbs  in  action. 

"  Thirty  years  ago  we  were  only  a  quarter  of  a  century 
or  so  from  the  long  and  mighty  struggle  which  lasted  for 
a  whole  generation,  and  filled  this  seaport  town  with  pros- 
perity, self-satisfaction,  and  happiness.  Oh,  for  the  brave 
old  days  when  week  after  week  French,  American,  Spanish, 
and  Dutch  prizes  were  towed  into  harbour  by  their  victors, 
or  sailed  in,  the  Union  Jack  flying  at  the  peak,  the  original 
crew  safe  under  hatches,  in  command  of  a  middy,  and 
half-a-dozen  British  sailors  told  off  to  take  her  home. 
They  talked,  these  old  grizzle-heads,  of  fights  and  convoys, 
and  perilous  times  afloat.  I  sat  among  them,  or  stood  in 
front   of   them,  and  listened.     Child   as    I  was,  my   little 

28 


SIR      PFJLTER     BESANT 

heart  glowed  to  hear  how,  yardarm  to  yardarm,  they  lay 
alongside  the  Frenchman  ;  how  a  dozen  times  over  the 
plucky  little  French  beggars  tried  to  board  them ;  how  she 
sheered  off  at  last,  and  they  followed,  raking  her  fore  and 
aft ;  how  she  suddenly  broke  out  into  flame,  and  before 
you  could  say  '  Jack  Robinson,'  blew  up,  with  all  that  was 
left  of  a  thousand  men  aboard ;  with  merry  yarns  of 
Chinese  pigtails,  made  to  be  pulled  by  the  British  sailor, 
and  niggers  of  Jamaica,  and  Dutchmen  at  the  Cape. 
Also,  what  stories  of  slavers,  of  catching  American  skippers 
in  the  very  act  of  chucking  the  niggers  overboard,  of 
cutting  out  Arab  dhows,  of  sailing  in  picturesque  waters 
where  the  natives  swim  about  in  the  deep  like  porpoises  ; 
of  boat  expeditions  up  silent  rivers  in  search  of  piratical 
Malays ;  of  lying  frozen  for  months  in  Arctic  regions, 
long  before  they  thought  of  calling  men  heroes  for  passing 
a  single  winter  on  the  ice  with  every  modern  appliance  for 
making  things  comfortable." 

Here  is  a  picture  of  a  scene  which  I  often  wit- 
nessed —  feast  and  merriment,  mad  and  loud  and 
furious,  and  full  of  things  to  make  the  moralist 
weep.  I  have  stood  at  the  open  door,  looking  in 
for  half  an  hour  at  a  time  at  the  sailors  dancing 
hornpipes  and  the  girls  dancing  jigs,  and  all  singing 
and  drinking  together.  Do  you  suppose  it  does  a 
child  any  harm  to  see  such  things  ?  Not  a  bit,  so 
long  as  he  knows  not  what  such  things  mean  ;  the 
thing  is  like  a  lovely  act  in  a  beautiful  play  :  the 
music  of  the  fiddles  is  heavenly,  the  laughter  and 
the  joy  of  the  nymphs  and  sailors  is  like  a  part  of. 
Paradise.      I  quote  from  By  Celias  Arbour :  — 

29 


A  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  T      OF 

"  We  came  to  a  public-house  ;  that  one  with  the  picture 
outside  it  of  the  Chinese  war.  There  was  a  long,  low 
sort  of  hall  within  it,  at  the  end  of  which  Wassielewski 
took  his  place,  and  began  to  fiddle  again.  Dancing  then 
set  in,  though  it  was  still  early  in  the  morning,  with  great 
severity.  With  dancing,  drink;  with  both,  songs;  with 
all  three,  Wassielewski's  fiddle.  I  suppose  it  was  the  com- 
mencement of  a  drunken  orgie,  and  the  whole  thing  was 
disgraceful.  Remember,  however,  that  it  was  more  than 
thirty  years  ago,  when  the  Navy  still  retained  its  old  tradi- 
tions. Foremost  among  them  was  the  tradition  that  being 
ashore  meant  drink  as  long  as  the  money  lasted.  It  some- 
times lasted  a  week,  or  even  a  fortnight,  and  was  sometimes 
got  through  in  a  day  or  two.  There  were  harpies  and 
pirates  in  every  house  which  was  open  to  Jack.  Jack,  in- 
deed, was  cheated  wherever  he  went.  Afloat,  he  was  robbed 
by  the  purser ;  he  was  ill-fed  and  found,  the  Government 
paying  for  good  food  and  good  stores,  contractors  and  pur- 
veyors combining  with  the  purser  to  defraud  him.  Ashore, 
he  was  horribly,  shamefully  cheated  and  robbed  when  he 
was  paid  off^  by  a  Navy  bill,  and  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  pay 
agents.  He  was  a  rough-hided  ruffian,  who  could  fight,  had 
seen  plenty  of  fighting,  was  tolerably  inured  to  every  kind  of 
climate,  and  ready  to  laugh  at  any  kind  of  danger,  except, 
perhaps.  Yellow  Jack.  He  was  also  tender-hearted  and  sen- 
timental. Sometimes  he  was  away  for  five  years  at  a  stretch, 
and  if  his  Captain  chose  to  make  it  so,  his  life  was  a  dog's 
life.  Floggings  were  frequent ;  rum  was  the  reward  of 
good  conduct ;  there  were  no  Sailors'  Homes,  none  of  the 
many  humanising  influences  which  have  made  the  British 
sailor  the  quiet,  decorous  creature,  generally  a  teetotaller, 
and  often  inclined  to  a  Methodist  way  of  thinking  in  re- 
ligion, half  soldier,  half  sailor,  that  he  is  at  present. 

30 


SIR      PVALTER      BESJNT 

"  It  was  an  orgie,  I  suppose,  at  which  no  child  should 
have  been  present.  Fortunately,  at  half-past  twelve,  the 
landlord  piped  all  hands  for  dinner." 

I  made  friends,  of  course,  with  the  veterans. 
Sometimes  I  ventured  on  a  little  offering  of  tobacco. 
One  of  them,  a  very  ancient  mariner,  used  always 
to  declare  that  he  had  been  cabin  boy  under  Cap- 
tain Cook  when  that  great  navigator  was  murdered. 
It  was  possible.  The  time  when  I  knew  this  ven- 
erable old  salt  was  about  the  year  1848.  Cook  died 
in  1779.  If  my  friend  was  born  in  1765  he  might 
very  well  have  been  a  cabin  boy  in  1779.  And  in 
1848  he  would  have  been  eighty-three  years  of  age. 
A  good  many  of  these  old  sailors  lived  to  be  past 
eighty.  Of  course,  all  these  veterans  belonged  to 
the  long  wars  of  1795-1815. 

Another  recollection.  There  were  convict  hulks 
in  the  harbour  ;  the  convicts  were  set  to  do  the 
work  of  excavating,  etc.,  for  docks,  and  other  things 
of  the  kind.  Of  course  they  were  closely  watched 
by  warders  armed  with  loaded  muskets.  Now  there 
was  one  thing  which  these  poor  wretches  ardently 
desired  —  tobacco.  To  give  tobacco  to  a  convict 
was,  of  course,  forbidden,  or  to  speak  to  him  or  to 
make  any  kind  of  communication  to  them.  It  was 
my  practice,  therefore,  to  get  a  lump  of  the  rough, 
strong  roll  tobacco,  put  it  in  my  pocket  and  loiter 
about  as  near  to  a  convict  as  I  could  get  without 
exciting  suspicion.  The  man  for  his  part  would 
work  in  my  direction  ;  he  knew  perfectly  well  what 
was  intended.     I  waited  until   the   nearest  warder 

31 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

had  his  eyes  the  other  way,  and  then  jerked  the 
quid  as  near  the  convict  as  I  could.  He  raised  his 
spade  and  began  to  scrape  the  instrument  as  if 
something  was  in  the  way.  Then  he  put  his  foot 
on  the  quid,  scraped  again,  and  stooping  in  the 
most  natural  way  in  the  world,  as  if  to  get  rid  of  a 
stone,  he  picked  up  the  quid  and  continued  his 
work  —  watching  the  warder.  As  soon  as  his  eye 
was  turned,  he  put  the  quid  in  his  mouth,  and  for 
the  remainder  of  that  day,  certainly,  he  was  a  happy 
man. 


SIR     H^  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  NT 


Chapter  11 

CHILD    AND    BOY  {continued) 

LET  me  speak  reverently,  as  indeed  I  must, 
of  the  home  Hfe  and  the  family  circle.  My 
'  father  was  the  youngest  of  ten  children ; 
he  was  born  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1800; 
consequently,  he  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century. 
His  father,  who  was  in  some  branch  of  the  Civil 
Service,  died,  I  believe,  about  the  year  1825.  Of 
him  I  have  no  tradition  save  that  he  went  to  his 
club  every  evening — this  means  his  tavern  —  return- 
ing home  for  supper  at  nine  punctually ;  that  he 
was  somewhat  austere  —  or  was  it  only  of  uncertain 
temper?  —  and  that  his  daughters  on  hearing  the 
paternal  footstep  outside  always  retreated  to  bed. 
Out  of  the  ten  children  I  only  know  of  eight. 
Two  of  them  were  in  the  Navy ;  one  died  young, 
the  other  got  into  some  trouble  and  had  to  leave 
the  Service  —  perhaps,  however,  he  was  one  of  the 
officers  who  were  dismissed  on  the  reduction  of 
the  Navy  to  a  peace  footing.  Another  entered 
the  Civil  Service  and  rose  to  a  highly  respectable 
position  ;  he  was  the  first  of  the  name  whose  portrait 
was  ever  exhibited  at  the  Royal  Academy.  Two 
of  the  daughters  married,  one  of  them  a  man  of  con- 
siderable fortune ;  the  other  an  official  of  the  Dock- 
3  33 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

yard.  As  for  my  father,  he  tried  many  things.  For 
some  time  he  was  in  very  low  water  ;  then  he  got  up 
again  and  settled  in  a  quiet  office.  He  was  not  a 
pushing  man,  nor  did  he  know  how  to  catch  at 
opportunities.  Mostly,  he  waited.  Meantime  he 
was  a  studious  man,  whose  chief  delight  was  in 
reading;  he  was  especially  well  acquainted  with  the 
English  drama,  from  Shakespeare  to  Sheridan ;  and 
he  had  a  good  collection  of  plays,  which  he  parted 
with  when  he  thought  that  they  might  do  harm  to 
his  boys.  I  had,  however,  by  that  time  read  them  all, 
and  I  am  sure  that  they  never  did  any  harm  to  me. 
He  was  a  shy  man,  and  very  retiring;  he  never 
went  into  any  kind  of  society  ;  he  belonged  to  no 
Masonic  Lodge  or  other  fraternity  ;  he  would  not 
take  any  part  in  municipal  affairs  ;  he  was  fond  of 
gardening,  and  had  a  very  good  garden,  in  which  he 
spent  the  greater  part  of  every  morning ;  and  he 
asked  for  nothing  more  than  an  occasional  visit  in 
the  afternoon  from  a  friend  and  an  evening  quiet 
and  free  from  interruption. 

He  was  never  in  the  least  degree  moved  by  the 
Calvinistic  fanaticism  of  the  time.  So  called  "  re- 
ligious "  people,  those  who  had  been  under  "  con- 
viction," the  "  Lord's  People  "  (as  they  arrogantly 
called  themselves),  were  very  much  exercised  about 
the  Elect,  their  limited  number,  and  the  extreme 
uncertainty  that  any  of  their  friends  belonged  to 
that  select  body.  As  for  themselves,  of  course, 
they  had  no  doubt.  What  was  the  meaning  of 
Conviction  unless  it  was  also  Election  ^.    The  Devils, 

34 


SIR      WALTER     B  E  S  A  N  T 

they  would  say,  believe  and  tremble.  Assuredly 
they  were  not  Devils.  Therefore  —  but  the  con- 
clusion was  illogical.  Now  my  father  took  the 
somewhat  original  line  of  sticking  to  the  rules  and 
regulations.  "  The  Lord,"  he  said,  "  has  laid  down 
Rules  plain  and  simple.  There  they  are,  written  up 
on  the  wall  of  the  Church  and  read  out  every  Sun- 
day for  everybody  to  hear.  Very  good ;  I  keep 
these  Rules,  and  I  go  to  Church  every  Sunday  out 
of  respect  to  the  Almighty  who  drew  up  those 
Rules.  No  more  can  be  expected  of  any  man.  As 
for  what  they  talk,  my  boy,  they  can't  talk  away  the 
plain  Rules  —  because  there  they  are ;  and  I  don't 
find  that  the  man  who  keeps  those  Rules  is  going 
to  be  damned,  but  quite  the  contrary."  I  have 
often  wondered  at  this  singular  attitude,  which  was 
so  entirely  contrary  to  the  habit  of  the  time.  But 
then  my  father  did  not  altogether  belong  to  the 
time.  Although  regular  in  attendance  at  church, 
he  never  ventured  to  present  himself  at  Holy  Com- 
munion. In  this  respect  he  did  follow  his  own 
generation,  in  which  the  participation  in  the  Sacra- 
ment was  a  profession  of  peculiar  sanctity.  Since 
we  were  warned  how  we  might,  by  unworthily  par- 
taking, cause  our  own  damnation,  it  was  generally 
felt  that  it  was  wiser  not  to  run  the  risk. 

When  I  consider  the  extent  of  the  Calvinistic 
teaching ;  its  dreadful  narrowness  ;  the  truly  heart- 
less and  pitiless  way  in  which  those  solemn  faces 
above  the  wobbling  Geneva  bands  spoke  of  the 
small  number  of  the  Elect  and  the  certainty  of  end- 

35 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

less  torment  for  the  multitude  —  the  whole  illus- 
trating the  ineffable  Love  of  God  —  I  am  amazed 
that  people  were  as  cheerful  as  they  were.  I 
suppose  that  people  were  accustomed  to  this  kind 
of  talk  ;  there  was  no  question  of  rebeUion  ;  nobody 
dared  to  doubt  or  disbelieve ;  only,  you  see,  the 
doctrine  if  realised  would  have  made  life  intolerable  ; 
the  human  affections  only  the  source  and  spring  of 
agony;  religion  a  selfish,  individual,  doubtful  hope; 
the  closing  years  of  old  age  a  horrible  anticipation 
of  what  was  to  follow.  Therefore  the  thing  was 
put  away  in  silence ;  it  was  brought  out  in  two 
sermons  every  week ;  it  was  regarded  as  a  theolog- 
ical exercise  in  which  the  congregation  could  admire 
the  intellectual  subtleties  by  which  every  gracious 
word  of  Christ  was,  by  some  distortion  of  half  a 
verse  from  Paul,  turned  into  the  exact  opposite  of 
what  it  meant.  For  my  own  part,  I  now  under- 
stand what  an  excellent  discipline  the  Sunday  ser- 
vices were.  No  getting  out  of  it*  on  any  terms  ; 
two  services  and  at  each  a  sermon  an  hour  long 
and  sometimes  more  —  doctrinal.  Evangelical  and 
Calvinistic.  One  had  to  sit  quite  still  and  awake ; 
not  to  wriggle  ;  not  to  whisper ;  not  to  titter.  As 
for  the  sermon  itself,  I  enjoyed  it  very  much.  Of 
course  I  understood  very  early  that  the  sermon  had 
no  bearing  on  my  own  conduct  nor  on  any  pros- 
pects I  might  have  entertained  concerning  the  life 
to  come.  Indeed,  after  I  had  read  the  Book  of 
Revelations,  which  I  did  early,  I  disconnected 
Heaven  altogether   from    the   man  with  the  white 

36 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

bands,  and  made  up  my  mind  that  he  was  talking 
about  something  which  was  quite  unconnected  with 
the  Apostle  of  Patmos  —  as  indeed  was  the  case. 
In  church,  therefore,  I  found  many  consolations  for 
the  length  of  the  service.  During  the  Litany  and 
the  Prayers  I  could  bury  my  face  in  my  hands  and 
go  off  in  dreams  and  imaginations  —  they  were 
dreams  of  delight.  During  the  sermon  I  could 
drop  my  eyes  and  carry  on  these  dreams.  To  this 
day  I  can  never  listen  to  a  sermon.  The  preachers 
begin  —  I  try  to  give  them  a  chance.  Then  the 
old  habit  returns.  Involuntarily  my  eyes  drop,  I 
fly  away,  I  am  again  John-o'-dreams.  Perhaps 
that  is  the  reason  why  I  have  not  been  to  church, 
except  once  or  twice,  for  nearly  thirty  years.  I 
except  the  Cathedral  service,  which  does  not  mean 
a  sermon.  I  go  into  St.  Paul's  or  Westminster  if 
I  am  passing  by,  and  sit  in  a  corner  till  the  anthem 
is  over.  Then  I  get  up  and  walk  out,  my  soul 
refreshed  with  the  prayer  and  praise  of  the  choir 
and  organ. 

It  was  another  great  stroke  of  good  luck  —  see 
what  good  things  were  provided  for  me  by  Fortune  ! 
—  that  we  had  a  small  library.  Very  few  middle- 
class  people  in  my  childhood  had  any  books  to 
speak  of,  except  a  few  shelves  filled  with  dreary 
divinity  or  old  Greek  and  Latin  Classics.  We  had 
an  excellent  collection  of  books.  There  were,  I 
remember,  Don  Quixote.,  Robinson  Crusoe^  Bunyan's 
works,  Marryat's  works,  and  those  of  Dickens 
which  were    then    written ;    all    Miss    Edgeworth's 

37 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

books,  Hume  and  Smollett's  History,  Conder's 
traveller,  the  Spectator  and  the  Guardian ;  Sterne's 
works,  and  some  of  Swift's  ;  Pope's  Homer  and  some 
of  his  other  poems;  Goldsmith's  works  complete; 
the  Waverley  Novels ;  Byron,  Wordsworth,  and  a 
number  of  minor  poets ;  whole  shelves  of  plays ; 
some  volumes  of  an  Encyclopaedia  ;  two  volumes, 
very  useful  to  me,  called  Elegant  Extracts ;  histories 
of  France,  Rome,  and  Greece  ;  Washington  Irving's 
works,  and  a  good  many  others.  Besides  which,  I 
saved  up  my  pocket-money  and  belonged  to  the 
"  Athenaeum,"  which  had  a  small  lending  library. 
For  a  boy  who  loved  books  beyond  and  above 
everything,  here  was  a  collection  that  lasted  till  I 
was  twelve,  at  least.  I  was  encouraged  to  read  not 
only  by  my  father's  example,  but  by  my  mother's 
exhortations  and  approval.  She  saw  in  learning  a 
hope  for  the  future ;  she  had  ambitions  for  her  boys, 
though  she  kept  these  ambitions  to  herself. 

Let  me  speak  once  for  all  about  my  mother. 
She  was  a  New  Forest  girl,  born  and  brought  up  in 
a  village  called  Dibden,  near  Hythe  and  Beaulieu 
(Bewlay).  The  church  stands  actually  in  the  Forest ; 
a  peaceful,  quiet  church,  to  which  I  once  paid  a  pil- 
grimage. My  mother  was  the  youngest  of  a  large 
family.  During  her  childhood  she  ran  about  on 
the  outskirts  of  the  Forest,  catching  and  riding  the 
bare-backed  ponies,  and  drinking  in  the  folklore  and 
old-wife  wisdom  of  that  sequestered  district.  At 
eighteen  years  of  age,  I  think  in  1825,  she  married 
and  came  to  Portsmouth  to  live.     Her  father  was 

38 


SIR     PrJLTER     B  ES  A  N  T 

not  a  New  Forest  man  ;  he  came  from  Lincolnshire, 
his  name  being  Eddis.  Her  mother  belonged  to 
an  old  New  Forest  race  of  farmers  or  yeomen 
named  Nowell.  Her  father  was  by  trade  or  pro- 
fession a  builder,  contractor,  and  architect.  Some 
portions  of  Hurst  Castle  were  built  by  him.  I 
imagine  that  his  business  lay  chiefly  in  Southamp- 
ton, and  that  his  family  lived  for  convenience  of 
country  air  across  the  water.  He  died  comparatively 
young,  and  his  large  family  seems  to  have  dwindled 
down  to  a  very  few  descendants,  one  branch  of 
whom  alone  is  known  to  me  at  the  present 
moment. 

My  mother  was  the  cleverest  woman  I  have  ever 
known :  the  quickest  witted ;  the  surest  and  safest 
in  her  judgments  ;  the  most  prophetic  for  those  she 
loved ;  the  most  far-seeing.  Her  education  had 
been  what  you  might  expect  in  a  village  between 
the  years  1807,  when  she  was  born,  and  1825,  when 
she  married.  But  it  sufficed  —  because  it  was  not 
book-learning  that  she  wanted  for  the  care  and  up- 
bringing of  the  children,  for  whom  she  rose  early 
and  worked  late.  I  have  said  that  ours  was  a 
household  in  which  economy  had  to  be  practised, 
but  without  privation.  The  comfort  of  the  house, 
the  well-being  of  the  children,  were  alike  due  to  my 
mother's  genius  for  administration.  Imagine,  if 
you  can,  her  pride  and  joy  when  her  eldest  child, 
her  eldest  son,  took  prizes  and  scholarships  at 
Cambridge ;  was  first,  year  after  year,  in  his  college 
examinations,    and     finished    by    becoming    senior 

39 


J  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r      OF 

wrangler  and  first  Smith's  Prizeman  !  It  was  my 
happiness,  twenty  years  afterwards,  to  make  her 
proud  of  her  third  son,  who  was  gaining  some 
success  in  other  fields.  When  I  think  of  such 
imaginative  gifts  as  I  have  possessed,  I  go  back  in 
memory  to  the  old  times  when  we  sat  at  my 
mother's  feet  in  blindman's  holiday,  when  the  sun 
had  gone  down,  but  the  lights  were  not  brought  in, 
and  she  would  tell  us  stories  of  the  New  Forest ; 
when  I,  for  one,  would  listen,  gazing  into  the  red 
coals  and  seeing,  as  in  a  procession,  the  figures  of 
the  story  pass  before  me  and  act  their  parts  between 
the  bars.  She  gave  me  such  imaginative  powers  as 
have  enabled  me  to  play  my  part  as  a  novelist ;  it 
is  my  inheritance  from  her.  To  others  of  her  chil- 
dren she  gave  other  gifts ;  to  one  the  mathematical 
mind ;  to  another  a  marvellous  memory  and  a 
grasp  of  figures  quite  remarkable ;  to  a  third  she 
gave  the  rapid  mind  which  seizes  facts  and  jumps 
at  conclusions  while  others  are  groping  after  the 
main  issues ;  to  another  she  gave  the  eye  and  the 
hand  of  the  artist  —  though  this  gift  was  unhappily 
wasted. 

When  I  grew  older  I  began  to  desire  to  see 
things  of  which  the  books  that  I  had  read  were  full. 
Now  Portsea  Island  is  excellently  placed  to  give  a 
boy  a  right  understanding  of  the  sea  and  of  ships, 
and  of  the  folk  who  go  upon  the  sea  in  ships ;  but 
it  is  a  perfectly  flat  island,  nowhere  more  than  a 
few  feet  above  the  high-tide  level ;  there  are  no 
streams  upon  it ;  there  are  no  woods ;  there  are  no 

40 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R      B  E  S  A  N  T 

hills ;  there  are  no  villages ;  there  are  no  village 
churches ;  there  is  no  pleasant  country.  Only  in 
one  place,  on  the  east  side  where  they  once  began 
to  make  a  canal  leading  from  nothing  to  nowhere, 
there  is  a  wild  tract  of  land  looking  out  across 
Langston  Harbour,  a  lagoon  on  whose  broad 
bosom  there  are  no  ships,  and  the  only  boats  are 
the  duck  hunters'  broad  flat  craft  with  outriggers. 
Beyond  the  island,  however,  and  on  the  mainland, 
there  was  another  kind  of  country,  a  Delectable 
Land. 

When  I  was  about  twelve  or  so  it  was  a  joy  to 
me  to  walk  four  miles  to  the  little  village  of  Co- 
sham,  on  the  mainland,  and  so  over  Portsdown 
Hill  into  the  lovely  country  beyond;  the  lane  led 
past  a  picturesque  old  church,  concealed  among  the 
trees  and  far  from  any  village.  I  have  found  many 
Hampshire  churches  hidden  away  in  woods  far 
from  any  hamlet.  The  church  of  Rowner,  near 
Gosport,  that  of  Widley,  behind  Portsdown,  that  of 
Dibden,  near  Hythe,  where  my  mother's  people  are 
buried,  occur  to  me.  I  suppose  that  the  parishes 
were  large,  and  that  the  church,  having  to  serve 
several  hamlets,  was  placed  in  a  spot  most  con- 
venient for  all.  It  was  at  Widley  Church  that  I  first 
felt  the  charm  of  things  ancient.  To  sit  in  a  lonely 
churchyard  among  trees  and  mouldering  mounds, 
and  to  gaze  upon  a  venerable  house  which  has 
soothed  and  consoled  generations  —  say  from  the 
time  when  King  Alfred  brought  back  the  scattered 
priests  to  Wessex — to  be   all  alone,  with  the  im- 

41 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

agination  of  a  child  and  the  knowledge  of  a  bookish 
boy  ;  to  feed  the  imagination  with  the  long  thoughts 
of  childhood,  was  a  kind  of  ecstasy.  It  seemed  as 
if  I  was  nearer  the  gates  of  heaven  than  I  have  ever 
since  attained  — 

—  **  but  now  'tis  little  joy 

To  find  that  heaven  is  farther  off 

Than  when  I  was  a  boy." 

Beyond  the  church,  the  lane  led  to  a  stream — 
the  first  stream  I  had  ever  seen,  bright,  swift,  bab- 
bling and  bubbling  over  the  stones.  Over  it  grew 
the  trees  —  I  forget  what  trees  —  indeed,  I  knew 
not  then  what  they  were ;  a  fallen  branch  lay  across 
the  stream  ;  dragon  flies  gleamed  in  bright  flashes 
over  the  water;  the  forest  was  loud  with  the  song 
of  birds  ;  the  heavy  bumble-bee  droned  about  the 
flowers ;  and  I  am  sure  that  there  were  more  but- 
terflies, especially  the  little  blue  ones  —  perhaps 
the  prettiest  of  all  —  than  I  have  seen  elsewhere. 
I  should  be  afraid  to  go  to  Widley  Church  again.  I 
should  perhaps  find  it  restored  or  rebuilt ;  and  per- 
haps the  lane  has  houses  in  it.  Let  it  remain  a 
memory. 

I  was  therefore  a  town  lad  —  or  a  seaport  lad ; 
the  things  of  Nature,  the  birds,  the  flowers,  the 
trees,  the  woods,  the  stream,  the  creatures,  were  not, 
so  to  speak,  a  part  of  me.  To  begin  with,  I  was 
always  shortsighted.  I  therefore  saw  little  of  the 
endless  variety  in  form,  colour,  and  curve.  The 
shapes  of  the  leaves ;  the  variations  of  the  flowers  ; 

42 


SIR      PFJLTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

the  flight  and  the  differences  of  the  birds  ;  the  small 
things  of  Nature,  —  these  I  have  never  seen,  to  my 
infinite  loss.  I  went  among  the  woods  as  a  stran- 
ger ;  I  had  no  plant  lore,  wild-flower  lore,  wood 
lore  ;  I  have  never  acquired  any.  In  all  the  years 
since  then  I  have  read  but  little  in  the  book  of 
Nature.  In  the  printed  book,  to  be  sure,  I  have 
read  a  great  deal  about  Nature.  It  is  something, 
but  not  everything.  And  as  regards  Nature  I  do 
not  know  whether  it  is  better  to  read  of  what  you 
know  or  of  what  you  know  nothing.  Richard  Jef- 
feries  walks  along  a  hedge  and  talks  to  me.  It  is 
like  the  uplifting  of  a  veil  ;  I  am  conscious  that  my 
senses  are  imperfect ;  I  am  not  only  shortsighted 
but  I  am  slow-sighted ;  it  takes  time  for  me  to 
make  out  things  clearly.  Again,  in  the  sense  of 
smell  I  have  not,  I  am  convinced,  anything  like  the 
acuteness  of  those  who  have  lived  much  in  the 
country.  I  have  a  companion  (who  has  tried  to 
teach  me  all  she  knows),  who  finds,  I  am  aware,  a 
thousand  breaths  of  fragrance  where  I  find  only  one. 
She  hears  in  the  warbling  of  the  woods  a  hundred 
notes,  and  distinguishes  them  all  —  to  me  they  are 
mostly  alike ;  she  knows  all  the  trees,  with  the  in- 
finite varieties  of  leaf,  of  colour,  of  bough  and 
branch,  with  the  loveliness  and  the  charm  that  be- 
long to  each  —  I  take  them  all  together ;  she 
knows  all  the  wild  flowers  and  loves  them  every 
one  for  its  own  sake  and  for  its  own  special  charm 
—  I  love  them  all  together.  This  comes  of  a  child- 
hood spent  in  streets  and  on  the  seashore  ;  and  of  a 

43 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

boyhood  wherein    the    leisure    hours    were    chiefly 
passed  coiled  up  in  a  corner,  nose  in  book. 

In  recalling  those  days  it  is  difiicult  to  separate 
them  from  the  imaginary  characters  of  my  novel  — 
By  Celid s  Arbour.  When  I  think  of  the  Dockyard 
I  see  the  two  boys,  Ladislas  and  Leonard,  peering 
into  the  twilight  of  the  long  rope-walk ;  being 
launched  on  board  a  three-decker  ;  rowing  about  in 
the  mast  pond ;  watching  the  semaphore  and  trying 
to  read  its  signals  ;  looking  into  the  building-sheds 
and  standing  aside  to  let  the  Port  Admiral  pass. 
When  I  think  of  Southsea  Common,  I  see  an  open 
heath  behind  a  bank  of  shingle  and  sand,  with  a 
marsh  and  a  tiny  rivulet  on  one  side  and  a  broader 
marsh  on  the  other  ;  and,  standing  by  itself,  the  grey 
old  castle  on  the  shore.  It  is  not  myself  who  is  run- 
ning across  that  heath,  but  those  two  boys,  who  share 
between  them  my  identity  ;  one  is  tall  and  handsome, 
with  a  brave  and  gallant  air  ;  the  other  is  short  and 
hump-backed.  These  two  boys  take  my  place  on 
the  beach  and  plunge  side  by  side  through  the 
breakers ;  they  row  out  to  Spithead  on  summer 
evenings  after  sunset,  when  the  grey  twilight  falls 
upon  the  sea,  and  no  knell  of  the  bell  buoy  saddens 
the  soul  ;  they  pull  that  dead  man  out  of  the  water 
whom  once  I  found  rolled  over  and  over  on  the  shingle ; 
they  row  about  among  the  hulks  and  worn-out  ships 
up  the  harbour  ;  they  stand  on  the  "logs"  and  watch 
the  man-o'-war's  boat  come  alongside  under  charge  of 
the  little  middy,  who  marches  along  the  wooden  piei 
with  so  much  pride,  the  object  of  envy  and  of  longing. 

44 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  J  NT 

The  boys  are  imaginary  ;  the  real  hero  of  that 
story,  "  the  Captain,"  is  not.  To  thy  memory,  dear 
old  Captain,  let  me  write  one  more  line.  He  was 
the  friend  of  all  boys ;  he  was  the  benefactor  of 
many  boys ;  he  pulled  them  out  of  the  gutter,  and 
had  them  taught  and  sent  them  into  the  Navy  ;  and 
this  silently,  so  that  his  left  hand  knew  not  what 
was  done  by  his  right  hand.  There  were  women 
whom  he  pulled  out  of  the  lowest  gutters  and  be- 
friended —  but  I  know  not  how ;  to  me  and  mine 
he  was  a  kind  of  "pal,"  to  use  the  word  which 
then  we  knew  not ;  he  understood  children  and  he 
understood  boys.  We  talked  freely  together,  as  a 
young  boy  with  an  old  boy.  In  winter  the  Captain 
was  dressed  all  in  blue,  with  the  navy  button  ;  in 
summer  he  wore  white  ducks,  a  white  waistcoat, 
and  a  big  coat  with  the  navy  button — the  crown 
and  anchor.  I  think  that  he  wore  this  half-pay 
uniform  on  Sundays  only.  On  other  days  he  was  in 
mufti.  He  was  a  bachelor,  and  lived  in  a  house  over- 
looking the  mill-dam.  At  church  his  pew  was  next  to 
ours  ;  and  as  we  were  too  many  for  our  square  box, 
we  overflowed  into  his  long  box.  The  hymn  books, 
I  remember,  were  locked  up  in  a  receptacle  at  the 
end  of  the  pew.  When  the  hymns  were  given  out 
he  produced  a  bunch  of  keys.  "  Get  out  the  tools, 
my  boy,"  he  would  say  in  a  loud  whisper  ;  *'  they 
are  now  going  to  squall."  I  never  understood  his 
objection  to  the  hymns,  but  I  think  he  disliked  the 
assistance  of  a  paid  choir.  To  be  sure,  it  was  a 
very  bad  choir,  and  the  squalling  was  slow  and  pro- 

45 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

longed.  The  Captain's  behaviour  in  church  was  in 
other  respects  exemplary.  He  sat  bolt  upright, 
preserving  the  appearance  of  attention  in  the  same 
attitude  for  the  Litany  as  for  the  sermon.  Church, 
for  him,  as  to  most  old  sailors,  was  part  of  the  day's 
duty  ;  the  performance  of  duty  qualified  the  soul 
for  promotion  ;  a  simple  religion,  but  one  which 
works  admirably  in  every  branch  of  both  Services, 
and  should,  I  think,  be  transplanted  into  the  life  of 
the  civilian. 

The  church  was  large,  and  contained  galleries ; 
the  living  was  small,  but  the  incumbent  during  the 
forties  was  a  fine  scholar,  at  one  time  Fellow  of  his 
college  at  Oxford,  who  had  taken  the  church  coupled 
with  a  school  which  was  then  attached  to  it.  The 
school  was,  I  think,  founded  with  the  church  about 
the  year  1730.  Unfortunately  it  was  not  endowed. 
My  father  was  educated  at  this  school,  and  so  were 
his  brothers.  Among  his  fellow-scholars  and  pri- 
vate friends  was  the  late  Sir  Frederick  Madden,  the 
great  antiquary.  The  school  somehow  or  other  — 
I  know  not  why  —  went  to  pieces,  somewhere  in  the 
forties. 

The  Rev.   H.  A ,  the    "  perpetual    curate," 

—  an  excellent  and  historical  title,  —  was  a  short, 
sturdy  man  of  corpulent  habit  and  a  very  red  face. 
He  had  an  aggressive  way  of  walking;  he  marched 
about  fearlessly  in  all  the  courts  and  slums,  of  which 
there  were  many.  He  was  of  the  school  then  called 
"High"  —  and  I  believe  that  he  was  as  far  above 
his  brethren,  who  were  all  Evangelical,  in  ecclesias- 

46 


SIR      JVJLTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

tical  history  as  he  was  in  Latin  and  Greek.  After- 
wards I  learned  more  about  him.  He  had  been 
captain  of  Westminster  school ;  at  Oxford  he  had 
distinguished  himself  in  the  noble  art  of  self-defence, 
and  was  champion  light  bruiser.  That  accounted 
for  his  aggressive  walk.  He  also  distinguished  him- 
self by  his  scholarship.  His  sermons  were  written 
in  excellent  English.  I  have  a  volume  of  them 
still.  He  was  further  remarkable  for  a  fine  and  dis- 
criminating taste  in  port ;  such  small  additions  as 
he  made  to  his  slender  stipend  by  private  tuition 
were  expended,  I  have  reason  to  believe,  in  that 
most  excellent  of  wines. 

I  heard,  long  years  after,  a  piece  of  scandal  con- 
cerning this  scholar,  which  I  repeat  because  it  ex- 
plains the  man.  In  a  book  of  small  edification 
called  the  Memoirs  of  Harriet te  JVilson,  there  occurs 
what  may  be  called  an  episode  in  the  life  of  a  noble 
lord.  Harriette  was  one  of  a  large  family  of  daugh- 
ters, all  beautiful,  who  were  one  after  the  other 
placed  by  the  thoughtfulness  of  their  parents  under 
the  protection  of  certain  noblemen  and  gentlemen. 
The  youngest  sister,  for  instance,  was  sold  to  Lord 

B ,  an  aged  person  who  retained  the  habits  of 

his  youth.  Harriette  relates  how  the  girl  went  off 
crying  and  refused  to  be  comforted,  even  when  her 
sisters  reminded  her  of  the  brilliant  position  she 
was  about  to  occupy.  However,  she  succeeded  in 
making  her  protector  marry  her,  and  was  left  a  very 
young  widow.     She  resided  at  Melton  Mowbray, 

and  Mr.  H.  A ,  then  a  young  don  at  Oxford, 

47 


AUTOBIOGRJPHT     OF 

was  accustomed  to  pay  visits  of  condolence  and 
consolation  to  her.  I  daresay  it  was  not  true,  but 
the  story  somehow  raised  the  subject  of  it  in  my 
estimation.  A  man  incapable  of  love  is  only  half 
a  man ;  a  man  who  has  loved,  if  not  wisely,  is  still 
a  man. 

My  first  school  was  kept  by  three  sisters,  daugh- 
ters of  a  retired  naval  surgeon.  It  was  a  cheerful 
school,  and  we  all  laughed  a  good  deal.  Two  of 
the  sisters  were  "serious,"  in  the  Evangelical  lan- 
guage of  the  day  ;  they  had  received  "  conviction  ;" 
in  the  words  of  the  preacher,  they  were  of  the 
"  Lord's  people."  The  other,  who  was  the  eldest, 
was  never  "serious;"  she  was  a  clever,  thoughtful, 
kindly  woman.      She   was  a   lifelong  friend  of  my 

sisters,  and  married  D.  A ,  who,  as  I  have  said, 

used  to  accompany  us  every  year  to  Porchester. 

My  first  independent  reading  was  Robinson  Crusoe, 
to  which  was  added  Pilgrim  s  Progress,  the  Book  of 
Revelations,  and  certain  tracts.  How  I  came  to 
read  the  Book  of  Revelations  I  do  not  know ;  it 
terrified  me  horribly,  while  it  attracted  me.  As 
regards  the  tracts,  I  suppose  they  were  brought  to 
the  house  by  some  of  our  "serious  "  friends.  One 
of  them  spoke  of  a  soul  winging  its  flight  to  heaven, 
and  I  remember  watching  the  tombs,  especially 
those  which  were  old  and  broken,  in  the  hope  of 
seeing  with  my  own  eyes  a  soul  wing  its  flight  to 
heaven.      But  I  never  did. 

At  the  age  of  nine  I  was  sent  as  a  private  pupil 

to  the    Rev.  H.  A ,  already   mentioned.     He 

48 


SIR      tV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

made  me  begin  Greek  and  Latin  at  the  same  time. 
I  had  to  learn  by  heart  great  quantities  of  Virgil 
and  Homer  before  I  could  construe  them.  I  also 
learned  grammar  in  vast  quantities.  Most  of  the 
work  was  learning  by  heart  and  repetition.  When 
I  began  to  translate,  which  was  very  soon,  my  tutor 
took  me  along  at  a  rapid  rate ;  I  acquired  a  fair 
vocabulary,  and  learned  to  translate  both  Latin  and 
Greek  with  commendable  facility.  Also  I  began 
to  do  Latin  verses  as  soon  as  I  could  string  a  few 
words  together. 

One  thing  I  really  could  not  approve  in  my  ex- 
perience of  H.  A .     It  was  his  determination  to 

drive  the  Church  Catechism  into  my  head.  Every 
Monday  morning  I  had  to  repeat  the  whole  of  it. 
Now  for  some  perverse  reason,  although  I  could 
rattle  off  miles  of  Virgil  and  Homer,  I  could  never 
get  through  the  Catechism  without  breaking  down. 
Generally  it  was  in  the  answer  to  the  question  — 
"  What  desirest  thou  in  the  Lord's  Prayer .? " 
There  I  met  my  fate  ;  there  I  broke  down  ;  the 
cane  was  at  hand  —  Whack  !  whack  ! 

I  stayed  with  this  tutor  for  two  years  or  more.  I 
declare  that  when  I  left  him,  at  twelve  years  of  age, 
I  knew  more  Latin  and  Greek,  I  could  write  better 
verses,  I  could  translate  more  readily  than  when  I 
was  eighteen.  Alas  !  had  I  continued  with  him  for 
three  or  four  years  longer,  he  would  have  made  me, 
I  am  certain,  a  fine  scholar.      But  I  left  him. 

There  had  been,  formerly,  a  grammar  school  at 
Portsmouth.      It  was  endowed,  I  think,  with  an  in- 
4  49 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

come  of  J^ioo  a  year;  but  in  my  time  it  was  in  de- 
cay ;  very  few  boys  went  to  it,  and  I  am  not  certain 
whether  it  was  still  kept  up.  In  Portsea  there  had 
been  a  grammar  school  —  St.  George's  Grammar 
School  —  this  was  now  closed.  A  new  school  had 
been  created  at  Southsea,  called  St.  Paul's  Grammar 
School.  It  was  a  "proprietary"  school,  under  a 
committee.  It  was  founded  about  the  year  1830,  I 
believe,  and  had  some  reputation  for  turning  out 
good  scholars.  My  brother,  the  best  man  that  ever 
came  out  of  the  school,  was  the  captain  in  1846,  go- 
ing to  Cambridge  in  October  of  that  year.  In  1848 
I  was  taken  from  my  private  tutor  and  placed  at  St. 
Paul's.  I  was  then  twelve  years  of  age,  and  on 
account  of  my  good  Latin  and  Greek  was  put  at 
once  into  the  Fifth,  among  the  boys  of  sixteen  or 
seventeen.  They  used  to  bully  me  a  little  because 
I  was  very  small  and  young,  and  I  was  generally  at 
the  top.  The  "  head  "  had  taken  a  fair  place  in 
mathematical  honours,  but,  oh !  the  difference  in  the 
classics  !  There  was  no  more  learning  by  heart ; 
there  was  no  more  translating  rapidly  and  with  enthu- 
siasm ;  the  Latin  verses  were  scamped.  The  school 
was  ill-taught ;  the  masters  quarrelled  ;  the  boys 
were  caned  all  day  long.  I  think  it  must  have  been 
a  good  thing  for  everybody  when  the  commitee,  I 
know  not  why,  agreed  to  shut  up  the  school.  They 
sold  the  building  for  a  Wesleyan  chapel,  which  it 
has  continued  to  be  until  the  present  day.  By  this 
time  I  knew  considerably  less  of  Greek  and  Latin 
than  when  I    left  my  tutor.     On  the  other  hand 

SO 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R      B  E  S  A  N  T 

there  were  gains.  There  were  games,  and  fights  ; 
the  boys  fought  continually.  And  I  made  a  begin- 
ning with  mathematics  ;  my  former  tutor,  poor  man  ! 
could  hardly  add  up,  and  knew  nothing  of  algebra 
or  Euclid. 

The  school  was  closed,  and  masters  and  boys  dis- 
persed, multivious.  I  do  not  think  that  in  after 
life  I  ever  came  across  any  of  those  who  had  been 
boys  with  me  at  that  school.  The  French  master, 
however,  remained  a  friend  of  ours  until  his  death, 
a  great  many  years  after,  at  a  very  advanced  age.  I 
have  introduced  him  in  a  story  called  All  in  a  Garden 
Fair,  as  a  teacher  of  French  in  a  girls'  school :  — 

"  He  was  a  little  man,  though  his  daughter  looked  as  if 
she  would  be  tall ;  yet  not  a  very  little  man.  His  narrow 
sloping  shoulders — a  feature  one  may  remark  more  often 
in  Paris  than  in  London  —  his  small  head,  and  the  neatness 
of  his  figure  made  him  look  smaller  than  he  was.  Small 
Englishmen  —  this  man  was  a  Frenchman  —  are  generally 
sturdy  and  broad-shouldered,  and  nearly  always  grow  fat 
when  they  reach  the  forties.  But  this  was  a  thin  man. 
In  appearance  he  was  extremely  neat;  he  wore  a  frock- 
coat  buttoned  tightly  ;  behind  it  was  a  white  waistcoat ;  he 
had  a  flower  in  his  button-hole ;  he  wore  a  pink  and  white 
necktie,  very  striking;  his  shirt-front  and  cuffs  were  per- 
fect ;  his  boots  were  highly  polished  ;  he  was  five-and-forty, 
but  looked  thirty;  his  hair  was  quite  black  and  curly,  with- 
out a  touch  of  white  in  it  ;  he  wore  a  small  black  beard ; 
his  eyes  were  also  black,  and  as  bright  as  steel.  It  is 
perhaps  misleading  to  compare  them  with  steel,  because  it 
is  always  the  villain  whose  eye  glitters  like  steel.  Now 
M.   Hector    Philipon    was   not    a    villain    at    all  —  by    no 

51 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

means.  The  light  in  his  eyes  came  from  the  kindness  of 
his  heart,  not  from  any  villainous  aims  or  wicked  passions, 
and  in  fact,  though  his  beard  and  his  hair  were  so  very 
black  —  black  of  the  deepest  dye,  such  as  would  have 
graced  even  a  wicked  uncle  —  he  frightened  nobody,  not 
even  strangers.  And  of  course  everybody  in  those  parts 
knew  very  well  that  he  was  a  most  harmless  and  amiable 
person.  He  had  a  voice  deep  and  full,  like  the  voice  of  a 
church  organ  ;  honey-sweet,  too,  as  well  as  deep.  And  at 
sight  of  his  little  girl  those  bright  eyes  became  as  soft  as  the 
eyes  of  a  maiden  in  love.  When  he  spoke,  although  his 
English  was  fluent  and  correct,  you  perceived  a  foreign 
accent.  But  he  had  been  so  long  in  the  country,  and  so  far 
away  from  his  own  countrymen,  that  the  accent  was  slight." 

I  was  then  sent,  for  a  stop-gap,  to  a  private 
school,  recently  opened  by  a  clergyman  who  had 
been  a  dissenting  minister,  sometime  a  student,  at 
Homerton.  He  was  a  kindly  man,  most  anxious 
to  do  well  by  his  boys,  but  unfortunately  no 
scholar  and  no  teacher.  His  school  I  believe  lasted 
only  for  two  or  three  years,  when  he  gave  it  up  and 
became  chaplain  to  a  gaol.  I  have  nothing  to  record 
of  the  eighteen  months  spent  with  him,  except  that 
I  forgot  more  of  my  Latin  and  Greek,  and  having 
very  little  to  do  for  school  work,  I  read  pretty  nearly 
everything  that  there  was  in  the  house  to  read. 

A  boy  who  is  ignorant  of  things  may  read  the 
worst  books  in  the  world  without  harm.  For  my 
own  part,  I  read  Tristram  Shandy  through  with 
the  keenest  delight.  I  adored  the  Captain  and 
Corporal  Trim,  I   found  Dr.  Slop  delightful ;  as  to 

52 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

the  double  entendre  with  which  this  work  is  crammed 
from  beginning  to  end,  I  understood  nothing,  not  a 
single  word.  When,  in  after  years,  I  took  up  the 
book  again,  I  was  amazed  at  the  discovery  of  what 
was  really  meant  in  passages  which  had  amused  me 
even  in  my  ignorance. 

This  childish  ignorance  may  sometimes  lead  one 
into  strange  confusions.  I  was  one  afternoon  read- 
ing Walter  Scott's  Peveril  of  the  Peak  when  two 
ladies  called.  After  a  few  minutes  of  "  manners  " 
—  i.e.,  I  put  down  the  book  and  sat  bolt  upright 
with  folded  hands  —  as  no  one  noticed  me  I  re- 
lapsed into  the  book,  became  absorbed,  and  forgot 
that  any  one  was  present.  Presently  I  came  upon 
a  passage  at  which  I  burst  out  laughing. 

"  What  is  your  book,  dear  boy  ? "  asked  one  of 
the  visitors.  "  Will  you  read  us  the  amusing 
passage  ?  " 

The  words  were  as  follows.  Alice  was  in  the 
presence  of  the  king.  "  Your  Majesty,"  she  said, 
"  if  indeed  I  kneel  before  King  Charles,  is  the  father 
of  your  subjects."  "  Of  a  good  many  of  them," 
said  the   Duke  of  Buckingham,  apart. 

The  passage  was  an  unfortunate  one.  I  laughed 
because  the  immensity  of  the  family  tickled  me. 
And  in  reading  it  again,  I  burst  out  into  a  fresh  and 
inextinguishable  laugh.  Suddenly  I  became  aware 
that  no  one  else  laughed,  and  that  all  faces  were 
stony  and  all  eyes  directed  into  unconscious  space. 
I  stopped  laughing  with  many  blushes.  But  why 
no  one  laughed  I  could  not  tell.      When  they  were 

53 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

gone  I  ran  to  my  own  room  and  read  the  passage 
again  and  again.  I  laughed  till  I  cried.  But  I 
felt  guilty,  and  I  could  not  tell  why  no  one  else 
laughed  —  "  Of  a  good  many  of  them  !  "  What  a 
family  !  I  am  certain,  however,  that  I  was  regarded 
ever  after  by  those  ladies,  who  did  know  what  his 
Grace  of  Buckingham  meant,  as  a  boy  of  strange 
and  precocious  vice. 

After  a  time  it  was  recognised  that  if  I  were  to  be 
perfectly  equipped  for  the  university  and  for  holy 
orders  I  must  no  longer  stay  at  this  worthy  person's 
private  academy.  For  some  reason  or  other  I  had 
always  said  that  when  I  grew  up  I  should  be  a 
clergyman.  I  should  have  preferred  being  a  mid- 
shipman, but  that  was  not  possible  when  one  was 
grown  up.  A  clergyman  —  not  that  I  had  the 
least  feeling  of  the  responsibilities  and  the  sacred 
character  of  the  profession  ;  but  it  was  clearly  a 
beautiful  thing  to  put  on  a  white  robe  and  make 
everybody  sit  quiet  and  orderly,  and  mute  as  mice 
while  he  read.  My  mother,  like  many  women,  was 
pleased  to  think  that  one  of  her  children  should  take 
holy  orders,  and  my  decision  was  accepted  as  the 
sign  of  a  true  vocation.  It  was  accepted,  in  fact,  by 
myself  as  well  as  by  my  folk  until,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-four,  I  made  the  discovery  which  forbade  the 
fulfilment  of  my  early  promise.  Had  the  prophet 
Samuel  seceded  from  the  temple,  his  mother  Han- 
nah would  not  have  grieved  more  than  my  mother 
to  think  that  her  ambitions  for  me  in  this  direction 
were  closed. 

54 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 


Chapter   III 

SCHOOL-BOY 

IN  the  year  1851  I  was  sent  to  a  London  subur- 
ban school,  Stockwell  Grammar  School,  chosen, 
I  believe,  because  one  of  my  brother's  college 
friends  had  been  there  and  recommended  it.  The 
school  was  one  of  a  small  group  founded  in  the 
thirties  and  scattered  about  the  suburbs,  much 
nearer  the  City  than  would  now  be  considered  a 
good  situation.  They  were  "in  connection"  with 
King's  College,  London,  and  exclusively  Anglican. 
The  connection  amounted  to  a  yearly  examination 
conducted  by  King's  College,  a  yearly  prize,  and 
certain  small  privileges  if  one  went  from  the  school 
to  the  college.  At  our  school  it  was  considered 
the  proper  thing  to  go  on  to  King's  College,  and 
there  to  take  one  of  the  scholarships.  We  did  this 
nearly  every  year,  for  a  good  many  years  ;  and  for 
a  small  school  we  really  did  wonderfully  well  at 
Cambridge  afterwards,  always  in  the  Mathematical 
Tripos.  Among  the  old  boys  of  this  small  sub- 
urban school  I  may  mention  the  late  Sir  George 
Grove,  Director  of  the  Royal  College  of  Music  ; 
Sir  Henry  Harben,  the  statistician;  the  Rev. 
Charles  Voysey,  of  the  Theistic  Church  ;  W.  H.  H. 
Hudson,  Professor  of  Mathematics  at  King's  Col- 

55 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

lege,  London ;  Horace  William  Smith,  Fellow  of 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge ;  Arthur  N.  Wollaston, 
C. I.E.,  the  Oriental  Scholar;  Sir  Henry  Irving,  the 
actor  ;  and  Charles  Irving,  C.M.G.,  late  Auditor- 
General  of  the  Straits  Settlements  and  Resident 
Councillor  of  Malacca  and  Penang.  For  the  rest, 
we  had  a  good  sprinkling  of  lawyers  and  clergymen, 
together  with  a  solid  phalanx  of  substantial  City 
men.  This  is  not  a  bad  average  in  the  thirty 
years'  life  of  an  insignificant  school. 

There  were  about  one  hundred  and  twenty  boys 
when  I  went  there  as  a  boarder  with  the  head- 
master. He  was  a  graduate  of  some  distinction  in 
classical  honours  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin ;  he 
was  a  solid  scholar,  but  certainly  not  a  fine  scholar. 
His  methods  were  of  the  old-fashioned  kind — the 
cast-iron  kind  —  the  boys  were  put  through  daily 
grammar  and  exercises,  construing  and  parsing.  The 
method  as  an  educational  discipline  was  no  doubt 
admirable,  but  it  gave  no  command  of  the  language. 
Unfortunately  the  same  method  was  applied  to 
Greek  and  to  French.  It  did  not  occur  to  school- 
masters of  that  time  that  our  own  language  afforded 
ample  scops  for  this  kind  of  discipline,  and  that  in 
Greek  and  French  we  might  at  least  have  been 
taught  the  language,  leaving  the  syntax  to  take  care 
of  itself.  I  believe  that  the  same  ridiculous  pretence 
at  teaching  French  is  still  kept  up ;  in  our  time  we 
read  Corneille  and  Racine.  Imagine  the  usefulness 
of  Racine  in  teaching  modern  French!  The  great- 
est linguist  I  have  ever  known  began  always  with 

56 


SIR      PFJLTER      BESANT 

finding  out  the  group  of  words  in  which  a  language 
might  be  said  to  begin:  the  common  words — their 
likenesses  and  differences.  He  then  began  to  trans- 
late ;  as  for  the  grammar,  he  picked  it  up  as  he 
went  along.  Now  in  French  there  are  three  things 
necessary:  (i)  to  read  it  easily,  (2)  to  write  it,  and 
(3)  to  speak  it.  It  is  impossible  to  speak  a  language 
perfectly  by  any  amount  of  study  in  an  English 
school ;  nor  can  one  learn  to  write  it  without  a 
vocabulary.  I  learned  French  by  reading  it  at 
home.  Greek  I  could  have  learned  in  the  same 
manner,  but  not  writing  Greek  verses.  However, 
we  had  the  customary  stumbling  through  so  many 
lines  of  construing  every  day ;  we  had  no  teaching 
in  literature  or  history,  only  grammar,  parsing,  and 
writing  of  exercises.  Verses  we  did,  of  course,  but 
the  "  head"  was  not  strong  in  either  Greek  or  Latin 
verses. 

He  was  a  good  man  and  kindly,  but  his  best 
qualities  were  concealed  by  an  extraordinary  ner- 
vousness ;  he  had  the  greatest  difficulty  in  speaking 
in  public  ;  if  he  preached,  he  read  a  ponderous  dis- 
course in  an  even  monotone ;  he  went  into  no  kind 
of  society;  he  had  no  friends.  If  a  school  can  be 
advanced  by  the  social  qualities  of  its  chief,  then 
were  we  indeed  in  a  bad  way ;  no  one  was  ever  in- 
vited to  the  house ;  he  spent  all  his  evenings  in  his 
study,  and  his  own  amusement  was  in  translating  for 
Bohn's  Library,  to  which  he  contributed  three  or 
four  volumes. 

On  one  occasion    he    dropped  into  verse.     He 

57 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

wrote  a  poem  in  blank  verse.  The  subject  was 
Geology.  Dr.  Johnson  once  said  that  the  "  Medi- 
terranean Sea  "  was  an  excellent  subject  for  a  poem  ; 
it  remains  for  some  one  to  act  on  the  suggestion. 
Geology  may  also  be  described  as  an  excellent  sub- 
ject for  a  poem.  I  wonder  if  there  is,  anywhere,  a 
copy  to  be  procured  of  this  effiision.  Why  my 
master  wrote  it,  why  he  published  it,  what  golden 
visions  fired  his  brain  with  thoughts  of  fame,  I 
know  not.  I  am  certain  that  he  must  himself  have 
paid  for  the  production.  Publication,  in  the  proper 
sense,  it  never  had,  because  no  bookseller  ever 
showed  it  or  offered  it.  If  aspiring  poets  only 
realised  this  point,  there  would  be  a  decrease  in  the 
printing  of  new  poems.  In  after  years  I  remember 
a  man  who  had  published  a  volume  of  verse  at  his 
own  expense  revealing  the  terrible  truth  to  me  of 
his  own  experience.  Three  copies  of  his  book  had 
been  sold,  two  to  his  own  brothers  !  One  copy 
represented  the  whole  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  demand 
for  that  volume  of  verse.  I  once  asked  the  pub- 
lisher about  it.  He  remembered  nothing  at  all, 
neither  the  poem  nor  the  poet.  My  master's  poem 
on  Geology  was  written  and  printed,  but  genuine 
publication   it  lacked. 

Stockwell,  where  our  school  was  situated,  was  at 
that  time  a  very  good  quarter,  with  many  wealthy 
merchants  and  professional  men  and  civil  servants 
living  in  it.  The  place  lay  between  the  Clapham 
Road  and  the  Brixton  Road  ;  it  consisted  of  a  dozen 
roads,  all  lined  with  stucco-fronted  villas,  large  or 


SIR      WALTER     B  E  S  A  N  T 

small,  in  their  gardens  ;  the  roads  were  planted  with 
trees ;  the  gardens  with  flowering  shrubs ;  a  leafy, 
peaceful,  prosperous  place.  The  boys  looked  to 
the  City  for  their  careers  ;  but  as  merchants,  stock- 
brokers, underwriters  and  principals,  not  as  clerks. 
A  few  entered  the  professions,  but  not  many.  Clap- 
ham  Common  furnished  one  cricket  ground ;  foot- 
ball was  not  yet  played  ;  for  the  smaller  boys  there 
was  a  playground  on  either  side  of  the  school. 

In  course  of  time  the  neighbourhood  began  to  de- 
cay ;  the  wealthy  merchants  and  the  professional 
men  and  city  solicitors  moved  farther  out ;  smaller 
houses  were  put  up  ;  a  commercial  education  was 
desired  rather  than  a  classical ;  the  school  decayed. 
In  1870  or  1 87 1  my  old  friend  the  head-master  re- 
signed. Then  happened  a  terrible  tragedy.  He 
was  about  sixty-seven  years  of  age ;  he  had  saved 
little  or  nothing ;  he  fell  into  anxieties  about  the 
future  ;  and  one  day  —  no  one  knows  why  —  no  one 
can  offer  any  theory  —  he  murdered  his  wife.  He 
was  tried  and  found  guilty.  There  was  no  defence  ; 
there  was  no  cause  discovered,  not  the  least  shadow 
of  a  cause ;  jealousy  was  out  of  the  question  from 
one  of  his  age  towards  a  wife  as  old  ;  no  one  has 
ever  been  able  to  suggest  any  probable  or  possible 
cause  of  the  crime.  Meantime  people  were  greatly 
moved  about  it.  The  man  was  old  ;  he  was  a  clergy- 
man ;  his  life  had  been  blameless  ;  he  was  always,  as 
a  schoolmaster,  kindly  and  good-tempered  ;  he  never 
fell  into  rages  with  the  boys.  The  doctors,  for  their 
part,  would  not  certify  that  he  was  insane.     In  the 

59 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

end  they  kept  him  In  prison  —  but  not  at  Broad- 
moor ;  and  some  years  later  he  died  in  his  convict's 
cell. 

The  mathematical  master  was  a  very  different 
man.  He  was  cheerful  and  jovial ;  he  was  also  a 
very  good  teacher  of  his  subject.  He  obtained  a 
close  fellowship  at  Cambridge,  and  went  back  there, 
lived  in  his  college  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  and  be- 
came well  known  for  his  breezy  conversation  and  his 
cultivation  of  the  art  of  dining. 

When  I  recall  the  boys  who  were  there  with  me, 
two  or  three  only  stand  out  in  my  memory  as  re- 
markable. There  were  two  brothers,  Cubans,  sent 
to  England  in  order  to  learn  English.  They  taught 
me  the  implacable  hatred  which  the  Cuban  feels  for 
the  Spaniard  ;  they  longed  to  get  back  in  order  to 
take  part  in  the  next  rebellion,  and  to  help  in  driv- 
ing the  Spaniards  into  the  sea.  I  wonder  if  they 
lived  to  see  the  deliverance  of  their  island  and  its 
transference  to  another  and  a  greater  Power. 

There  was  another  boy  who,  I  now  understand, 
must  have  been  a  Eurasian.  His  story  was  very 
strange.  On  his  arrival  from  India  he  was  received 
Into  the  house  of  a  certain  very  well-known  member 
of  Parliament,  financier  and  politician,  who  for  some 
years,  I  believe  until  his  death,  paid  the  boy's  school 
bills.  He  had  no  other  friend  in  England  and  none, 
so  far  as  he  knew.  In  India.  He  never  went  away 
for  the  holidays,  and  as  he  was  not  an  engaging 
youth,  no  one  ever  Invited  him.  It  was  a  lonely, 
miserable  boyhood.     Now  it  happened  that  about 

60 


SIR      ^  J  L  r  E  R     B  ES  J  N  T 

the  year  1855  his  patron  died.  It  was  then  intimated 
that  there  was  no  more  money  ;  that  the  boy  could 
not,  therefore,  as  he  had  been  always  led  to  expect, 
be  brought  up  to  a  profession,  but  must  learn  a 
trade.  So  after  having  gone  through  five  or  six 
years  of  the  classical  mill,  with  associates  all  intended 
for  the  liberal  professions  or  for  the  better  side  of 
the  City,  the  boy  was  taken  away  and  apprenticed 
to  a  watchmaker.  When  his  time  was  expired  he 
called  upon  his  old  master,  received  from  him  what- 
ever facts  he  knew  connected  with  his  history,  and 
said  that  he  was  going  back  to  India,  in  order  to  find 
his  father  and  his  own  people.  The  facts  were  few 
indeed,  only  that  the  financier  had  formerly  certain 
near  relations  somewhere  or  other  in  India.  So  he 
disappeared.  I  wonder  if  he  ever  did  find  his  father  ; 
or  if  he  still  wanders  about  that  broad  country  seek- 
ing and  finding  not. 

Another  boy  I  remember.  He  started  life  after 
leaving  school  with  every  chance,  as  it  appeared,  of 
a  prosperous  career ;  he  succeeded  to  the  manage- 
ment of  a  great  business  ;  was  thought  certain  to 
become  a  very  rich  man ;  he  was  a  member  of  a 
City  company ;  he  would  speak  of  ambitions  con- 
nected with  the  Mansion  House  itself.  After  he 
left  I  saw  no  more  of  him  ;  but  in  course  of  time  I 
heard  rumours  of  incompetence  ;  then  of  dismissal; 
he  had  been  turned  out  of  his  managing  director- 
ship. His  chance  was  gone.  I  lost  sight  of  him 
altogether  and  forgot  his  existence,  until  many 
years    later,    when    my    name    was    tolerably    well 

61 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

known  as  a  novelist.  I  then  received  a  letter  in 
which  this  old  schoolfellow,  bursting  into  a  gush  of 
affection  and  reminiscence,  told  me  his  story  as  he 
wished  it  put,  artlessly  betraying  a  variegated  career 
of  failure,  and  ending  with  a  request  that  I  would 
at  once  send  him  ^200,  and  would  also  write  him  a 
"  long  and  chatty  letter,"  as  from  an  old  and  still 
affectionate  friend.  He  wanted,  you  see,  a  testi- 
monial of  respectability.  What  he  would  have 
done  with  the  letter,  had  I  fallen  into  the  trap, 
would  have  been  to  show  it  about  and  to  use  it, 
probably,  for  purposes  of  deception. 

However,  most  of  the  boys,  I  believe,  turned 
out  well ;  those  who  are  still  living  are  substantial, 
but  they  are  very  few.  I  met  one  the  other  day,  to 
whom  the  City  has  been  a  Tom  Tiddler's  Ground. 
"  Have  you  heard,"  he  said,  "  that  Lawrence  is 
dead  ?  "  Lawrence,  one  of  the  last  of  the  school- 
fellows, boy  or  man,  was  always  called  by  his 
Christian  name.  So  Lawrence  was  dead,  and  there 
was  another  link  snapped. 

There  were  many  curious  and  pleasant  places 
within  reach  of  Stockwell.  Clapham  Common,  on 
the  south,  the  first  of  the  Surrey  heaths.  It  was 
surrounded  by  stately  mansions,  sacred  to  the 
memory  of  Wilberforce,  Thornton,  and  Macaulay, 
standing  amidst  broad  lawns  with  splendid  cedars. 
The  common  itself  was  left  absolutely  untouched ; 
winter  water-ways  made  little  ravines ;  there  were 
ponds,  there  were  no  roads,  there  was  gorse 
and   fern.     It  was    our    playground.     Beyond    lay 

62 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

Wandsworth  Common,  another  wild  heath  with 
a  lake  called  the  Black  Sea,  wherein,  it  was 
rumoured,  gigantic  pike  attacked  and  bit  great 
holes  in  the  boy  who  ventured  to  swim  across. 

On  the  west  one  could  easily  reach  the  Battersea 
Fields.  As  I  recollect  this  place,  it  was  most  dreary 
and  miserable  ;  a  broad  flat,  lower  than  the  river, 
and  protected  by  an  embankment.  On  the  bank 
stood  the  once  famous  Red  House  tavern,  now  long 
forgotten,  and  beside  it  the  pigeon-shooting  ground. 
This  sport  went  on  continually.  If  a  pigeon  es- 
caped he  was  potted  by  men  who  carried  guns  and 
lay  waiting  for  him  outside  the  grounds.  Battersea 
Church  was  on  the  wall  of  the  Fields,  the  transfor- 
mation of  a  great  part  of  which  into  Battersea  Park 
took  place  between  1851  and  1858. 

In  summer  our  favourite  rambles  were  farther 
afield,  in  the  direction  of  Champion  Hill,  Heme 
Hill,  Dulwich,  and  even  Penge.  No  one  visiting 
these  places  at  the  present  day  can  understand  their 
loveliness  before  they  were  built  over.  Dulwich, 
with  its  ancient  college  and  its  inn,  its  greenery  and 
its  orchards,  was  surely  the  sweetest  village  in  the 
world.  I  always  looked  about  in  case  I  might  come 
upon  Mr.  Pickwick,  who  was  then  a  resident,  but  I 
was  never  privileged  to  see  him.  The  hanging  woods 
of  Penge  in  autumn  were  lovely  beyond  the  power 
of  words.  Its  Common  on  the  Hill  had  been  en- 
closed long  before  —  in  1824  —  Howe  laments  the 
fact  in  that  year ;  but  in  the  fifties  Penge,  Norwood 
and  Sydenham  formed  a  group  of  suburbs  still  rural, 

^3 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

still  covered  with  woods  and  gardens,  and  as  beauti- 
ful as  any  country  village.  As  yet  there  were  neither 
omnibuses  nor  railway.  The  people  who  went  into 
the  City  drove  in  their  own  carriages  or  rode 
their  own  horses.  Any  morning  along  the  Clapham 
Road  there  were  still  many  who  rode  into  town. 

We  were  not  great  at  games  at  the  school.  There 
was  a  cricket  club,  but  my  short  sight  disqualified 
me  from  any  game  of  ball ;  in  the  winter  there  was 
hockey  on  Clapham  Common.  I  think  that  foot- 
ball had  not  yet  come  in  ;  in  fact  athletics,  in  such 
schools  as  this  was,  hardly  existed.  On  the  other 
hand  we  took  long  walks  ;  we  walked  to  Richmond, 
and  rode  ponies  in  the  Park ;  we  walked  to  Putney, 
and  took  boats  on  the  River ;  we  jumped  the  Effra, 
in  the  Dulwich  Fields ;  we  had  a  gymnastic  bar  and 
did  things  of  strength ;  sometimes  we  wrestled ; 
sometimes  we  fought.  On  the  whole  it  was  a 
healthy  kind  of  life,  with  plenty  of  outdoor 
exercise. 

For  my  own  part,  I  had  a  form  of  recreation  all 
my  own,  of  which  1  said  nothing,  because  the  other 
boys  would  not  understand  it.  I  had  friends  at 
Camberwell  and  Brixton,  who  asked  me  two  or 
three  times  a  term  to  dinner  on  a  half-holiday. 
On  such  occasions  I  used  to  get  away  at  two  and 
walk  all  the  way  Into  the  City  of  London,  which 
was  to  me  then,  as  it  has  been  ever  since,  a  place  of 
mystery,  full  of  things  to  be  discovered.  Nothing 
could  be  more  delightful  than  to  wander  about,  not 
knowing  where,  so  long  as  one  was  in  the    City. 

64 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

Sometimes  I  would  light  upon  St.  Paul's,  and  hear 
the  service;  sometimes,  but  rarely,  I  would  find  a 
City  church  open  ;  sometimes  I  would  climb  the 
Monument  in  order  to  look  down  upon  the  laby- 
rinth of  streets.  Sometimes  I  found  myself  in 
streets  that  I  knew  :  Paternoster  Row  —  that  was 
the  place  of  books,  and  I  regarded  the  narrow  lane 
with  awe  and  longing ;  or  in  Little  Britain  —  I 
knew  that  street  from  Washington  Irving ;  or  in 
Newgate  Street,  which  was  then  one  long  double 
row  of  butchers'  shops ;  or  by  the  old  bastion  of 
London  Wall ;  or  in  Cloth  Fair,  then  a  lovely 
monument  of  picturesque  gables,  overhanging  win- 
dows and  dirt  of  Tudor  antiquity.  Once  I  found 
myself  in  Goswell  Street,  and  looked  about  for  Mrs. 
Bardell,  just  as  beside  the  Monument  I  looked 
about  for  the  residence  of  Mrs.  Todgers,  or  the 
square  in  which  Tim  Linkinwater  lived.  If  I 
could  only  remember  the  City  as  it  was  !  But 
nothing  is  more  difficult  to  recall  than  the  aspect 
of  a  street  or  a  house  before  destruction  and 
rebuilding. 

It  was  in  the  summer  of  1854  that  I  became 
captain  of  the  school  and  left  it  with  a  barrowful  of 
prizes.  It  was  a  small  triumph,  I  daresay,  to  be 
captain  of  a  little  suburban  school  with  a  hundred 
boys,  but  it  pleased  everybody,  including  myself. 
As  for  what  I  knew  —  well,  I  believe  I  had  less  real 
knowledge  of  Latin  and  Greek  than  at  twelve,  but 
I  suppose  I  knew  more  grammar.  My  mathe- 
matical knowledge  was  much  better ;  we  had  gone 
5  65 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

through  most  of  the  subjects  then  known  as  the 
"three  day"  subjects,  because  they  covered  the 
ground  of  the  first  three  days  of  the  Cambridge 
Mathematical  Tripos ;  and  what  was  more,  I  knew 
them  very  fairly,  through  the  accident  of  being 
taught  mathematics  more  intelligently  and  with  more 
heart  than  classics.  I  was  taken  out  of  my  proper 
line,  which  was  certainly  the  latter,  and  made  to  go 
in  for  mathematics,  which  I  could  follow  and  learn 
and  master,  but  in  which  I  had  no  original  power 
whatever.  In  other  things,  I  could  read  French 
fairly  well,  from  private  reading ;  and  I  could  read 
German  almost  as  well.  As  for  science,  I  knew 
nothing  whatever  about  it.  We  only  went  through 
a  little  book  of  question  and  answer  on  political 
economy  ;  we  learned  geography  by  making  maps  ; 
if  we  learned  history  at  all,  I  have  forgotten  in  what 
way.  We  wrote  an  essay  every  week,  which  we  had 
to  divide  and  arrange  in  a  certain  fixed  order  —  such 
as  the  Preface ;  the  Reasoning ;  the  Simile ;  the 
Quotation;  the  Illustration;  the  Argument;  and  the 
Conclusion.  It  was  by  this  simple  rule  of  thumb 
that  the  first  lessons  in  arrangement  and  in  con- 
struction were  then  taught,  but  I  doubt  if  there  could 
have  been  devised  any  better  way  of  directing  the 
mind  unconsciously  to  obtain  a  sense  of  proportion 
and  lucidity  of  arrangement.  To  this  day,  when  I 
read  an  essay  constructed  loosely  and  confusedly,  I 
say,  "  My  friend,  you  were  never  taught  to  divide 
your  argument  into  those  sections  which  make  it  more 
forcible  and  more  attractive." 

66 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 


Chapter  IV 

KING'S  COLLEGE,  LONDON 

ING'S  COLLEGE,  London,  where  I  was 
entered  in  October,  1854,  was  then  even 
more  than  now  considered  as  a  bulwark  of 
orthodoxy  and  the  EstabHshed  Church.  To  begin 
with,  every  student  on  admission  was  required  to 
sign  the  Thirty-nine  Articles.  I  believe  the  regula- 
tion was  defended  on  the  ground  that,  although  a 
lad  of  seventeen  was  hardly  likely  to  be  a  stalwart 
defender  of  these  Articles,  he  acknowledged  by 
signing  them  the  principles  of  authority ;  he  bowed 
before  the  teaching  of  his  spiritual  pastors,  and  ac- 
cepted what  he  could  neither  prove  nor  disprove. 
Considering  all  that  we  have  to  accept  on  trust  in 
the  scientific  world,  perhaps  it  is  not  too  much  to 
invite  this  confidence  on  the  part  of  a  boy.  Of 
course,  all  the  Professors  were  Church  of  England 
men ;  there  was  a  very  terrible  Council  consisting 
of  so  many  Grand  Inquisitors  ;  the  least  suspicion 
of  heterodoxy  was  visited  by  deprivation.  They 
were  as  implacable  as  the  Holy  Office.  No  reputa- 
tion, no  abilities,  no  services,  no  distinction  could 
save  the  heretic.  The  orthodoxy  of  the  college 
gave,  however,  no  farther  trouble  to  students  than 
a  weekly  lecture  by  the  Principal  on  these  Articles 

67 


A  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r     OF 

which  they  had  been  made  to  accept  on  trust.  Dur- 
ing my  year  at  the  college  we  got  through  four,  I 
remember  —  the  first  four.  The  remaining  thirty- 
five  1  have  continued  to  accept  on  trust. 

I  cannot  say  that  the  students  were  carefully 
looked  after,  or  that  the  teaching  could  be  called 
good.  Our  Professor  of  Classics,  Dr.  Browne,  was 
a  kindly  and  genial  scholar.  We  translated  a  good 
deal.  We  wrestled  with  him  all  the  time  about 
learning  Virgil  by  heart.  He  also  gave  us  a  course 
of  Logic  and  another  of  Rhetoric,  both  of  which, 
although  very  short  and  elementary,  proved  truly 
useful  to  one,  at  least,  of  his  students.  The  Pro- 
fessor of  Mathematics  had  been,  I  daresay,  a  good 
teacher  in  earlier  years;  when  I  joined  he  was  old 
and  had  quite  lost  all  interest  in  his  work.  Indeed, 
he  no  longer  pretended  any,  but  sat  at  his  desk 
while  the  men  worked  at  their  own  sweet  will, 
bringing  him  from  time  to  time  difficulties  and 
questions  which  he  solved  for  them  mechanically. 
There  were  French  classes  and  German  classes. 
There  was  a  Greek  Testament  class,  which  I  at- 
tended ;  it  was  compulsory. 

Our  best  Professor  was  a  man  of  considerable 
mark  as  an  antiquary  and  archaeologist  —  the  late 
J.  S.  Brewer.  He  was,  if  I  remember  right.  Pro- 
fessor both  of  English  History  and  of  Literature, 
the  two  going  together  in  those  dark  days.  He 
was  a  stimulating  lecturer,  full  of  forcible  eloquence 
and  of  enthusiasm  for  his  subject.  He  could  also  on 
occasion  show  a  rough  side  of  tongue  and  temper. 

68 


SIR      IV  J  LT  E  R      B  E  S  A  N  T 

So  far  as  I  can  remember,  there  was  very  little  in 
the  way  of  social  life  among  the  students  of  my 
time.  A  Debating  Society  existed  —  I  was  a  mem- 
ber, but  never  ventured  to  speak.  I  remember, 
however,  the  outrageous  nonsense  that  was  talked 
by  the  ingenuous  youth  —  nonsense  that  set  me 
against  Debating  Societies  for  life.  I  forget  whether 
there  were  cricket  and  boat  clubs,  but  I  think  not. 
There  were  a  few  residents,  and  I  daresay  they  made 
a  society  of  their  own.  Of  the  students  who  were 
there  in  my  time  one  or  two  emerged  afterwards  from 
the  ruck.  Wace,  afterwards  Principal  of  King's, 
was  one ;  a  laborious  scholar,  who  made  the  best 
use  of  his  talents.  I  believe  that  he  was  for  many 
years  a  leader  writer  for  the  1'imes.  Ainger,  at 
this  moment  Canon  of  Bristol  and  Master  of  the 
Temple,  a  man  of  accomplishments  and  readiness, 
was  another.  Years  afterwards  I  was  present  at 
the  annual  prize-giving.  My  former  Professor, 
Archdeacon  Browne,  who  had  long  before  retired 
from  his  post,  addressed  the  meeting.  He  said  that 
it  had  afforded  him  peculiar  gratification  to  observe 
the  distinctions  achieved  by  former  students  of 
King's.  Among  those  who  had  thus  risen  to  great- 
ness, he  said,  were  Bishops,  Deans,  Archdeacons, 
and  Beneficed  Clergy.  No  distinctions  outside  the 
Church  were  worth  considering  in  a  college  so 
ecclesiastical,  but  the  worthy  Archdeacon  repre- 
sented the  King's  College  of  its  founders. 

I  made  a  few  friends  in  the  college,  some  half 
dozen  or  so,  who  went  on  to  Cambridge  at  the  same 

69 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

time  as  myself.  When  lectures  were  over  I  used 
generally  to  walk  away  by  myself  into  the  City. 
There  was  no  reason  for  getting  into  the  City  ;  I 
knew  nothing  about  its  history;  but  it  fascinated 
me,  as  it  does  to  this  day.  Apart  from  all  its  his- 
torical associations,  the  City  has  still  a  strange  and 
inexplicable  charm  for  me.  I  like  now,  as  I  liked 
then,  to  wander  about  among  its  winding  lanes  and 
narrow  streets ;  to  stand  before  those  old,  neglected 
City  churchyards ;  to  look  into  the  old  inn  yards, 
of  which  there  remain  but  one  or  two.  If  I  could 
only  by  some  effort  of  the  memory  recall  those 
streets  and  houses,  which  I  suppose  I  saw  while 
they  were  still  standing,  but  have  forgotten !  I 
knew  the  City  before  they  provided  it  with  the 
new  broad  thoroughfares  ;  before  they  pulled  down 
so  many  of  the  City  churches.  I  ought  to  remem- 
ber the  double  quadrangle  of  Doctors'  Commons 
—  that  quaint  old  college  in  the  heart  of  the  City  ; 
Gerard's  Hall ;  St.  Michael's  subterranean  Church  ; 
the  buildings  on  the  site  of  the  Hanseatic  Aula ; 
St.  Paul's  School ;  the  Merchant  Taylors'  School ; 
Whittington's  Alms-House ;  and  I  know  not  what 
beside.  Alas !  I  have  long  since  forgotten  them. 
In  those  days,  however,  I  walked  about  among 
these  ancient  monuments.  When  I  was  tired  and 
hungry  I  would  look  for  a  chop-house,  dine,  and 
then  walk  slowly  home  to  my  lodgings,  taking  a 
cup  of  coffee  at  a  coffee-house  on  the  way.  My 
lodgings  were  in  a  place  called  Featherstone  Build- 
ings,   Holborn.     I    shared   rooms   with  a  brother, 

70 


SIR      JVALTER     BESANT 

who  was  in  the  City.  He  had  a  good  many  friends 
in  London,  and  was  out  nearly  every  evening.  I 
had  few,  and  remained  left  to  my  own  devices ;  we 
had  little  in  common,  and  went  each  his  own  way  ; 
which  is  an  excellent  rule  for  brothers,  and  main- 
tains fraternal  affection. 

I  ought  to  have  stayed  at  home  In  the  evening 
and  worked.  Now  Featherstone  Buildings  is  a 
very  quiet  place ;  there  is  no  thoroughfare ;  all  the 
houses  were  then  —  and  I  daresay  are  still  —  let  out 
in  lodgings  ;  our  one  sitting-room,  which  was  also 
my  study,  was  the  second  floor  front.  In  the  even- 
ing the  place  was  absolutely  silent ;  the  silence 
sometimes  helped  me  in  my  work ;  sometimes  it  got 
on  my  nerves  and  became  intolerable.  I  would 
then  go  out  and  wander  about  the  streets  for  the 
sake  of  the  animation,  the  crowds,  and  the  lights ; 
or  I  would  go  half-price  —  a  shilling  —  to  the  pit 
of  a  theatre ;  or  I  would,  also  for  a  shilling,  drop 
into  a  casino  and  sit  in  a  corner  and  look  on  at  the 
dancing.  I  was  shy  ;  I  looked  much  younger  than 
my  age ;  I  spoke  to  no  one,  and  no  one  spoke  to 
me.  The  thing  was  risky,  but  I  came  to  no  harm  ; 
nor  did  1  ever  think  much  about  the  character  of 
the  people  who  frequented  the  places.  One  of 
them  was  in  Dean  Street,  Soho.  It  is  now  a  school; 
it  was  then  "  Caldwell's  "  —  a  dancing  place  fre- 
quented by  shop-girls,  dressmakers,  and  young 
fellows.  I  do  not  know  what  the  reputation  of  the 
place  was ;  no  doubt  it  was  pretty  bad ;  but,  so  far 
as  I  remember,  it  was  a  quiet  and  well-conducted 

71 


AUTOBIOGRJPHT     OF 

place.  To  this  day  I  cannot  think  of  those  lonely- 
evenings  in  my  London  lodging  without  a  touch  of 
the  old  terror.  I  see  myself  sitting  at  a  table,  books 
spread  out  before  me.  I  get  to  work.  Presently  I 
sit  up  and  look  round.  The  silence  is  too  much 
for  me.  I  take  my  hat  and  I  go  out.  There  are 
thousands  of  young  fellows  to-day  who  find,  as  I 
found  every  evening,  the  silence  and  loneliness 
intolerable.  If  I  were  a  rich  man  I  would  build 
colleges  for  these  young  fellows,  where  they  could 
live  together,  and  so  keep  out  of  mischief.  As  for 
my  friends,  they  were  too  far  off  to  be  of  much  use 
to  me  ;  they  lived  for  the  most  part  at  Clapham 
and  Camberwell,  four  miles  away. 

I  have  mentioned  the  brother  who  became  Senior 
Wrangler.  Two  or  three  years  afterwards  he  had 
a  longp  and  serious  illness.  At  the  same  time  my 
youngest  sister  —  a  child  of  six  or  so  —  was  threat- 
ened with  St.  Vitus's  Dance.  As  change  of  air  was 
wanted  for  both,  lodgings  were  taken  at  Freshwater 
Bay,  in  the  Isle  of  Wight.  I  went  with  the  two 
patients,  and  it  was  a  delightful  holiday.  The  sick 
people  were  convalescent.  My  brother  talked  to 
me  all  day  long  about  Cambridge,  and  what  he 
thought  I  ought  to  do.  My  imagination  was 
fired.  It  seemed  to  me  —  it  seems  so  still  — 
the  most  splendid  thing  in  the  world  for  a  young 
fellow  to  go  to  the  university ;  there  to  con- 
tend with  young  giants ;  and,  if  he  can,  to  keep 
his  field  and  be  victorious.  My  own  victories 
proved  humble,   but   I   formed  and  cherished  am- 

72 


SIR      TVALTER      BESJNT 

bitions  which  were  delightful,  and   at  least   I   had 
the  training. 

I  remember  Freshwater  for  another  reason.  It 
was  the  beginning  of  the  Crimean  War,  and  Tenny- 
son's Maud  had  just  come  out.  I  read  the  poem  on 
the  beach  in  that  lovely  bay  ;  I  saw  the  poet  himself 
stalking  among  the  hills  —  the  Queen's  Poet,  the 
country  people  called  him.  I  had  seen  the  splendid 
fleets  of  which  he  spoke  go  forth  to  war.  Heaven  ! 
How  the  lines  at  the  end  of  Maud  rang  in  my  brain  I 
The  fleets  went  out  to  war,  but  they  saw  little ;  the 
war  was  carried  on  by  the  armies.  In  those  days 
the  poor  lads  had  to  face  the  awful  Russian  winter 
with  brown  paper  boots,  shoddy  great-coats,  and 
green  coffee  berries.  I  remember  the  people  of 
Portsmouth  going  about  with  white  faces,  the  men 
swearing  and  cursing,  the  women  weeping.  I  re- 
member seeing  the  wounded  borne  on  stretchers  up 
the  street  to  the  new  hospital  under  the  walls.  And  I 
remember  —  saddest  sight  of  all  —  seeing  the  remains 
of  a  regiment,  that  had  been  cut  to  pieces,  marching 
from  the  Dockyard  gates  to  the  barracks  —  the  band 
was  reduced  to  five  or  six ;  the  regiment  was  a  skel- 
eton. The  men  were  ragged,  and  as  they  passed 
along  they  were  followed  by  the  weeping  and  wailing 
of  the  women.  The  poor  degraded  sailors'  and 
soldiers'  women  had  so  much  left  of  womanhood  as 
to  weep  for  the  brave  men  who  lay  in  the  cemetery 
far  away  on  the  Crimean  shores.  I  visited  Fresh- 
water again  after  forty  years.  Alas  !  the  place  is 
ruined.     They  have  built  a  promenade  round  the 

73 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

little  bay  ;  there  are  rows  of  houses  and  villas  and 
terraces.  Tennyson's  Freshwater  is  gone ;  no  one 
would  recognise,  in  the  cockney  watering-place,  the 
lonely  and  secluded  spot  which  furnished  inspiration 
for  Tennyson's  most  beautiful  poem. 

My  three  short  terms  at  King's  College,  London, 
came  to  an  end  —  not  altogether  ingloriously.  I 
kept  up  the  honour  of  my  little  school  by  taking 
the  mathematical  scholarship ;  I  carried  off  prizes 
in  classics,  mathematics,  and  divinity.  But  nobody 
cared  about  any  of  the  students ;  during  the  whole 
time  I  was  there  I  never  remember  a  single  word  of 
personal  interest  or  of  encouragement.  The  men 
went  to  lectures  ;  if  they  failed  to  attend,  a  letter  was 
sent  to  their  people  at  home;  of  individual  interest 
or  encouragement  there  was  absolutely  none.  I  be- 
lieve it  was  much  the  same  thing  at  most  of  the 
colleges  of  Oxford  and  Cambridge  at  this  time.  The 
men  were  left  severely  alone ;  so  that,  after  all. 
King's  was  not  behind  its  betters. 

One  little  distinction  made  me  at  the  time  very 
proud.  It  was  in  my  first  term.  When  the  news 
came  home  of  the  Battle  of  the  Alma,  Trench,  then 
Archbishop  of  Dublin,  and  formerly  one  of  the 
professors  of  King's,  sent  a  poem  to  the  'Times  upon 
the  victory.  Professor  Browne  gave  it  to  his  class 
for  Latin  elegiacs.  My  copy,  I  was  rejoiced  to  hear, 
was  selected  to  be  sent  to  the  Archbishop.  He 
wrote  a  very  cordial  letter  in  reply,  with  a  kindly 
message  to  me.  I  wish  I  had  kept  the  letter  with 
that  message. 

74 


SIR      tV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

One  of  my  prizes,  I  have  said,  was  for  divinity. 
It  was  still  my  purpose  to  enter  into  holy  orders. 
That  is  to  say,  I  used  to  consider  this  my  purpose. 
But  as  to  any  deliberate  preparation  for  the  life,  or 
attempt  to  realise  what  it  meant ;  or  what  was  meant 
by  the  ecclesiastical  mind  ;  or  to  understand  the 
necessity  for  acquiring  the  power  of  speaking,  or  of 
any  qualification  even  distantly  belonging  to  the 
clerical  profession  —  I  paid  no  attention  and  gave 
no  thought  to  such  things.  Had  I  done  so  ;  had  I 
realised  the  terrible  weight  of  the  fetters  with  which 
the  average  clergyman  of  the  time  went  about  laden 
—  the  chain  of  literal  inspiration  and  verbal  ac- 
curacy, the  blind  opposition  to  science,  the  dreary 
Evangelisations  of  the  religious  literature,  the 
wrangles  over  points  long  since  consigned  to  the 
limbo  of  old  controversies,  the  intolerant  spirit, 
the  artificial  life,  the  affected  piety  —  I  should  have 
given  up  the  thought  of  taking  holy  orders  long 
before  the  decision  was  forced  upon  me. 

During  this  period  I  began  to  write  —  or  to  make 
the  first  serious  attempt  at  writing.  That  is  to  say, 
I  had  always  been  writing;  as  a  boy,  trying  the 
most  impossible  things,  even  comedies.  Now,  how- 
ever, I  began  to  form  definite  ambitions.  I  would 
be  a  poet.  I  believe  that  this  dream,  which  happens 
to  thousands  of  lads  of  every  degree,  may  be  the 
most  useful  illusion  possible.  For  it  necessitates 
the  writing  of  verse,  and  there  is  no  kind  of  exercise 
more  valuable,  if  one  is  destined  to  write  prose,  than 
the  writing  of  verse,  even  though  the  result  is  by  no 

75 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

means  a  success.  My  dream  made  me  perfectly  and 
entirely  happy  ;  my  verses  I  thought  splendid.  Long 
years  afterwards,  when  this  youthful  dream  had  been 
well-nigh  forgotten,  I  came  across  a  bundle  of  papers 
tied  up  carefully.  They  were  my  poems.  Each  was 
dated  carefully,  after  the  fashion  of  the  bards  of 
fame.  I  turned  them  over.  Heavens  !  How  could 
any  one,  even  in  the  present  day,  imagine  or  persuade 
himself  that  this  stuff  was  poetry  !  I  found  crude 
and  commonplace  thoughts,  echoes  of  Tennyson 
and  Wordsworth  —  everything  except  what  I  had 
imap-ined  when  I  wrote  this  skimble-skamble  stuff. 

o 

Suddenly  I  understood.  The  years  roiled  back.  I 
saw  myself  with  glowing  cheek,  with  beating  pulse, 
with  humid  eye,  reading  over  what  I  had  just  written. 
And  I  saw  that  the  young  man  read  on  the  page 
before  him,  not  the  lame  lines  and  the  forced 
rhymes,  but  the  thoughts  in  his  own  mind  —  the 
splendid  thoughts,  which  were  borrowed  here  and 
lifted  there  unconsciously,  and  which  were  lying  in 
his  brain  waiting  to  be  worked  up  and  absorbed, 
and  to  form  part  of  himself.  And  so  this  bundle 
of  bad  verses  was  in  itself  a  part  of  education. 

I  once  wrote  a  story  —  a  very  simple  story  it 
was  —  of  three  boys  and  a  girl.  One  of  my  boys 
was  a  youth  with  literary  ambitions.  In  my  pre- 
sentment of  that  youth  I  seem  to  see  some  kind  of 
portrait,  or  sketch  after  the  life,  of  myself.  The 
book  was  called  All  in  a  Garden  Fair,  from  which  I 
have  already  quoted.  Here  is  a  passage  in  which 
the  boy's  early  efforts  are  described:  — 

76 


SIR      fVALTER      BESANT 

"'Such  a  boy  as  Allen  is,  before  all  things,  fond  of 
books.  This  means  two  things — first,  that  he  is  curious 
about  the  world,  eager  to  learn,  and,  secondly,  that  he  is 
open  to  the  influences  of  form  and  style.  Words  and 
phrases  move  him  in  the  silent  page  as  the  common  man 
is  moved  by  the  orator.  He  has  been  seized  by  the  charm 
of  language.  You  understand  me  not,  my  daughter ;  but 
listen  still.  When  a  boy  has  once  learned  to  love  words, 
when  he  feels  how  a  thing  said  one  way  is  delightful,  and 
said  another  way  is  intolerable,  that  boy  may  become  a 
mere  rhetorician,  pedant,  and  precisian ;  or  an  orator,  one 
of  those  who  move  the  world  ;  or  a  poet,  one  of  those 
born  to  be  loved.' 

" '  And  Allen,  you  think,  will  be  —  what  ?  A  rhetori- 
cian, or  an  orator,  or  a  poet  ?  ' 

"  '  It  may  be  the  first,  but  I  think  he  will  not  be.  For 
I  also  observe  in  the  boy  the  intuitions,  the  fire,  the 
impatience,  and  the  emotion,  which  belong  to  the  orator 
who  speaks  because  he  must,  and  to  the  poet  who  writes 
because  he  cannot  help  it.  I  think — nay,  I  am  sure  — 
that  a  lad  with  these  sympathies  cannot  be  a  mere  rhet- 
orician  or  a   maker  of  phrases.' 

"  Claire  listened,  trying  still  to  connect  this  theory  with 
the  conspiracy,  but  she  failed. 

"  '  He  reads,  because  it  is  his  time  for  reading  every- 
thing. He  has  no  choice.  It  is  his  nature  to  read.  He 
was  born  to  read.  He  reads  by  instinct.  He  reads  poetry, 
and  his  brain  is  filled  with  magnificent  colours  and  splendid 
women ;  he  reads  romances,  and  he  dreams  of  knights  and 
stately  dames;  he  reads  history,  and  his  heart  burns  within 
him;  he  reads  biography,  and  he  worships  great  heroes; 
he  reads  tragedy,  and  he  straightway  stalks  about  the  Forest 
another  Talma ;  he  reads  idyls,  and  the  meadows  become 

77 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

peopled  to  him  with  the  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  —  he 
lives  two  lives  :  one  of  these  is  dull  and  mean ;  to  think  of 
it,  while  he  is  living  the  other,  makes  him  angry  and 
ashamed,  for  in  the  other  he  lives  in  an  enchanted  world, 
where  he  is  a  magician  and  can  conjure  spirits.'  " 

I  have  not  succeeded  in  becoming  a  poet ;  I  still 
think,  however,  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  world 
so  entirely"  desirable  as  a  poetic  life — if  uninter- 
rupted, without  anxieties  for  the  daily  bread,  sus- 
tained by  noble  thought,  and  encouraged  by  great 
success.  Of  all  the  men  of  our  century  I  would 
rather  have  been  Tennyson  than  any  other  man 
whatever. 

However,  I  had  my  dream,  and  it  was  very 
delightful.  And  when  I  went  up  to  Cambridge, 
exchanging  my  lonely  lodgings  in  Holborn  for  a 
fuller  and  healthier  social  life,  I  ceased  to  think  of 
poetry,  and  for  three  years  almost  ceased  to  think 
of  writing  at  all.  Once,  I  remember,  I  attempted 
a  poem  for  the  Chancellor's  Prize.  When  I  had 
half  finished  it,  one  of  our  men  brought  me  a  MS. 
It  was  his  poem.  No  one  was  to  be  allowed  to 
send  in  his  composition  in  his  own  handwriting. 
Would  I  write  it  out  for  him  ?  I  looked  at  it  with 
a  sinking  heart.  It  was  a  great  deal  better  than 
mine.  It  was  so  unusually  good  that  it  failed  to 
get  the  prize.  Now  mine  was  of  a  good  honest 
mediocrity,  so  mediocre  that  I  have  often  lamented 
the  incident  which  prevented  my  sending  it  in. 


78 


SIR      JV  ALTER     BESANT 


Chapter  V 

CHRIST'S    COLLEGE,    CAMBRIDGE 

I  WAS  entered  at  Christ's,  one  of  the  so  called 
"  small "  colleges.  It  was  then  larger  than 
most  of  the  Oxford  colleges,  and  stood  about 
fifth  on  the  list  at  Cambridge  in  point  of  numbers. 
All  the  colleges,  however,  in  1855  were  much 
smaller  than  they  are  in  1900.  Thus,  our  under- 
graduates were  under  a  hundred  in  number ;  there 
are  now  at  the  same  college  two  hundred. 

I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that  a  very  large  college, 
such  as  Trinity,  Cambridge,  does  not  offer  any- 
thing like  the  social  and  educational  advantages  of 
a  small  college.  Trinity,  for  instance,  has  about 
seven  hundred  undergraduates  ;  Christ's,  about  two 
hundred.  Now  the  chief  advantage  of  a  university 
course  is  the  intercourse  of  the  students  among  each 
other ;  the  meeting  of  young  men  from  all  parts  of 
the  country  and  the  Empire  ;  the  widening  of  views 
by  free  discussion.  When  there  are  only  some 
fifty  or  sixty  men  of  each  year,  they  are  drawn  to- 
gether by  studies,  by  sports,  by  pursuits  of  all 
kinds  ;  every  man  may  make  his  mark  upon  his 
year ;  every  man  may  get  all  that  there  is  to  be  got 
by  the  society  of  other  men  of  his  own  time.  There 
are  "sets,"  of  course,  —  a  reading  set ;  an  athletic 

79 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

set ;  a  musical  set ;  a  loafing  set ;  a  fast  set.  At 
Trinity,  however,  a  man  may  be  simply  swamped. 
As  it  is,  there  is  a  tendency  for  the  Eton  men  to 
keep  together  and  make  a  set  of  their  own ;  if  a 
man  does  not  belong  to  any  of  the  great  public 
schools,  he  will  find  it  difficult  to  get  into  certain 
sets  which  may  be  intellectually  the  best ;  if  he  does 
not  distinguish  himself  in  any  branch  of  learning, 
if  he  does  not  do  well  in  athletics,  if  he  shows  no 
marked  ability  in  any  direction,  it  is  quite  possible 
for  him  to  pass  through  Trinity  as  much  neglected 
and  alone  as  a  solitary  lodger  in  London.  In  a 
smaller  college  the  sets  overlap  :  it  is  realised  that 
one  may  be  a  reading  man  and  also  an  athlete.  A 
freshman  of  ability  is  at  once  received  into  the  best 
reading  set ;  he  gains  the  inestimable  advantage  for 
a  young  fellow  of  nineteen  of  knowing,  and  being 
influenced  by,  the  third-year  man  who  is  about  to 
distinguish  himself  in  the  Tripos,  or  even  the 
Bachelor  who  has  already  distinguished  himself.  In 
the  college  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  to  two  hundred 
men  there  is  room  for  the  development  of  character; 
no  one  need  be  lost  in  the  crowd  ;  the  dullest  of 
dull  men  may  in  some  way  or  other  make  his  mark 
and  impress  upon  his  contemporaries  a  sense  of  his 
individuality. 

At  other  times  and  in  other  places  I  have  ad- 
vanced the  theory  that  the  eighteenth  century  did 
not  really  come  to  an  end  with  December  31st, 
1800,  but  that  it  lingered  on  until  well  into  the 
nineteenth  century,  even  to  the  beginning  of  Queen 

80 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

Victoria's  eventful  reign.  In  no  place  did  it  linger 
so  long  as  at  Cambridge.  When  I  went  up,  the 
fellowships  and  the  scholarships  had  been  thrown 
open,  but  only  recently,  so  that  the  Society  was 
mainly  composed  of  those  who  held  close  fellow- 
ships. These  men,  whose  attainments  had  never 
been  more  than  respectable,  generally  marked  by 
a  place  somewhere  among  the  wranglers,  had  for 
the  most  part  come  up  from  some  small  country 
town  ;  they  had  a  very  faint  tincture  of  culture  ; 
they  were  quite  ignorant  of  modern  literature  ; 
they  knew  absolutely  nothing  of  art.  As  regards 
science,  their  contempt  was  as  colossal  as  their 
ignorance.  They  vegetated  at  Cambridge ;  their 
lectures  were  elementary  and  contemptible ;  they 
lectured  to  freshmen  on  Euclid,  algebra  or  Greek 
Testament — the  last  for  choice,  because  to  fit  them 
for  the  task  they  only  had  to  read  Bengel's  Gnomon 
and  other  works  of  the  kind,  now  perhaps  —  I  don't 
know  —  forgotten ;  they  divided  the  posts  and 
offices  of  the  college  among  themselves ;  they 
solemnly  sat  in  the  Combination  Room  for  two 
hours  every  day  over  their  port ;  they  sometimes 
played  whist  with  each  other  ;  they  hardly  ever 
went  outside  the  college  except  for  an  afternoon 
walk ;  and  they  waited  patiently  for  a  fat  college 
living  to  fall  in.  When  a  vacancy  happened,  the 
next  on  the  list  took  the  place,  went  down,  and  was 
no  more  heard  of. 

The  dulness,  the  incapacity,  the  stupidity  of  the 
dons  brought  the  small  colleges  into  a  certain  con- 
6  8i 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

tempt.  The  decay  of  Cambridge  as  a  place  of  learn- 
ing threatened  to  overwhelm  the  university.  I  be- 
lieve that  for  the  first  half  of  the  century  the 
scholarship  and  science  of  Cambridge  were  a  laughing- 
stock on  the  Continent.  Naturally,  the  dulness  of 
the  fellows  was  in  some  sort  reflected  among  the 
undergraduates.  There  were  certain  colleges  which 
seemed  never  to  show  any  intellectual  life  at  all.  I 
need  not  mention  names,  because  everything  is  now 
changed.  The  close  fellowship  has  now  vanished ; 
the  close  scholarship  has  been  largely  abolished ; 
the  entrance  scholarships  attract  good  men  to  the 
small  as  well  as  the  large  colleges  ;  the  fellows  and 
lecturers  of  the  former  do  not  yield  in  intellectual 
attainments  to  those  of  the  latter. 

If  the  dons  were  different  in  the  first  half  of  the 
last  century,  how  different  were  the  undergraduates  ! 
In  the  fifties,  the  now  universal  habit  of  travel  was 
unknown;  the  lads  who  came  up  to  Cambridge  had 
seen  no  other  place  than  the  small  country  town  or 
country  village  from  which  they  came.  They  were 
the  sons  of  country  gentlemen,  but  infinitely  more 
rustic  than  their  grandsons  of  the  present  day ;  they 
were  the  sons  of  the  country  clergy,  well  and  gently 
bred,  many  of  them,  but  profoundly  ignorant  of  the 
world ;  they  were  the  sons  of  manufacturers ;  they 
were  the  sons  of  professional  men  ;  they  came  from 
the  country  grammar  school,  which  had  not  yet  been 
converted  into  a  public  school  after  the  one  pattern 
now  enforced ;  they  had  gone  through  the  classical 
mill;   they   had  learned  a  little  mathematics;    they 

82 


SIR      WALTER     BESANT 

played  cricket  with  zeal ;  they  were  wholly  ignorant 
of  the  world,  of  society,  of  literature,  of  everything. 
They  mostly  intended  to  take  holy  orders,  and  some 
of  them  had  family  livings  waiting  for  them.  It  is 
difficult,  in  these  days,  to  understand  the  depth  and 
the  extent  and  the  intensity  of  the  ignorance  of 
these  lads. 

It  happened,  by  great  good  luck  for  Christ's,  that 
there  had  arisen  a  man  in  the  college  who  had  eyes 
to  see  and  a  head  to  understand.  The  man's  name 
was  Gunson ;  he  was  a  Cumberland  man,  and 
prouder  of  being  a  "  statesman "  than  of  being 
tutor  of  his  college.  However,  this  man  resolved 
upon  converting  his  charge  into  a  living  and  active 
seat  of  learning.  First,  he  made  his  own  lectures 
—  classical  lectures  —  worth  attending  ;  then,  as 
there  was  no  mathematician  in  the  college,  he  got 
one  of  the  ablest  of  the  younger  mathematicians  in 
the  university,  Wolstenholme  of  St.  John's,  elected 
to  a  fellowship  and  lectureship  at  Christ's.  Then 
he  began  to  make  things  uncomfortable  for  the  men 
who  could  read  to  good  purpose  and  were  idle. 
For  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  the  college  there 
was  seen  a  tutor  who  actually  concerned  himself 
about  the  men  individually  ;  who  stormed  and  bul- 
lied the  indolent  and  encouraged  those  who  worked. 
The  result  was  that,  during  the  whole  time  that 
Gunson  was  tutor  of  Christ's,  that  is  to  say,  for  a 
quarter  of  a  century,  the  college  turned  out  a  suc- 
cession of  men  with  whom  no  other  college  except 
Trinity  could  compare. 

33 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

Let  me  enumerate  some  of  the  men  who  were 
members  of  the  college  during  that  quarter  of  a 
century  when  Gunson  was  tutor.  It  will  be  seen 
that  some  of  them  —  the  seniors  —  cannot  be  claimed 
as  the  results  of  Gunson's  activity  ;  but  the  great 
majority  were  undoubtedly  his  children. 

To  put  the  Church  first,  there  were  Frederick 
Gell,  Bishop  of  Madras  from  1861  to  1899  ;  Sheep- 
shanks, Bishop  of  Norwich ;  Sweatman,  Bishop  of 
Toronto  ;  Henry  Cheetham,  Bishop  of  Sierra  Leone  ; 
and  Samuel  Cheetham,  Archdeacon  of  Rochester, 
and  editor,  with  the  late  Sir  William  Smith,  of 
the  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities.  —  Among 
scholars,  men  of  science,  and  men  of  other  distinc- 
tion, there  were  Sir  John  Robert  Seeley,  Professor 
of  Modern  History  at  Cambridge,  author  of  the 
Expansion  of  England,  and  Ecce  Homo  ;  Charles  Stuart 
Calverley,  poet  and  scholar ;  Walter  Skeat,  Profes- 
sor of  Anglo-Saxon  at  Cambridge ;  John  Peile, 
afterwards  Master  of  Christ's  College  ;  J.  W.  Hales, 
Professor  of  English  Literature  at  King's  College, 
London  ;  James  Smith  Reid,  Professor  of  Ancient 
History ;  Walter  Wren,  the  well-known  coach ; 
the  Rev.  C.  Middleton-Wake,  a  writer  on  artistic 
topics  ;  Dr.  Robert  Liveing,  dermatologist ;  Sir 
Henry  B.  Buckley,  Judge  of  the  High  Court ;  Sir 
Walter  Joseph  Sendall,  G.C.M.G.,  Governor  in  turn 
of  the  Windward  Islands,  Barbados,  Cyprus,  and 
British  Guiana;  Sir  John  Jardine,  K.C.I.E.,  Judge 
of  the  High  Court  of  Bombay,  and  author  of  Notes 
on  Buddhist  Law;    Richard  Ebden,  C.M.G.,  Chief 

H 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

Clerk  at  the  Colonial  Office ;  Sir  Winfield  Bonser, 
Chief  Justice  of  Ceylon ;  S.  H.  Vynes,  Professor 
of  Botany  at  Oxford  ;  H.  Marshall  Ward,  Professor 
of  Botany  at  Cambridge  ;  George  Henslow,  also  a 
famous  botanist;  A.  E.  Shipley,  Lecturer  on  Mor- 
phology at  Cambridge  ;  Dr.  Wallis  Budge,  the  great 
Cuneiform  scholar  and  keeper  of  the  Egyptian  and 
Assyrian  Antiquities  at  the  British  Museum  ;  and 
many  others.  I  do  not  think  that  any  other  college 
except  Trinity  can  show  so  goodly  a  list.  To  these 
may  be  added  those  who  came  to  the  college  after 
taking  their  degree  —  Wolstenholme,  third  wrangler 
in  1850,  my  eldest  brother's  year,  and  late  Profes- 
sor of  Mathematics  at  Cooper's  Hill  Engineering 
College ;  John  Fletcher  Moulton,  K.C.,  Senior 
Wrangler  and  First  Smith's  Prizeman ;  Francis 
Darwin,  author  of  Practical  Physiology  of  Plants^  and 
biographer  of  his  distinguished  father  ;  and  Robert- 
son Smith,  the  man  of  colossal  learning.  Lord 
Almoner's  Professor  of  Arabic  at  Cambridge,  and 
joint  editor  of  the  Encyclopcedia  Britannica. 

The  greater  number  of  these  names  belong  to  the 
late  fifties  and  the  early  sixties.  For  my  own  part, 
I  had  the  great  good  fortune  of  entering  when 
Calverley  had  just  taken  his  degree,  when  Seeley 
was  a  third-year  man  ;  Skeat,  Hales,  Sendall,  Peile 
belonged  either  to  my  own  year  or  to  that  above  or 
below.  Seeley,  as  an  undergraduate,  was  what  he 
remained  in  after  life,  a  leader  and  a  teacher  of 
men  ;  he  was  always  somewhat  grave,  even  austere ; 
always  a  student;    always  serious  in   his  discourse 

85 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

and  in  his  thoughts.  To  talk  daily  with  him  was 
an  education.  He  was  most  helpful  to  younger  men 
in  whom  he  took  an  interest ;  for  my  own  part,  I 
have  to  thank  him  for  opening  up  a  new  world  to 
me.  My  opportunities  of  conversation  with  scholars 
had  been  few.  At  school  there  had  been  none  ;  my 
head-master  never  talked  to  the  boys ;  at  King's 
College  there  had  been  none,  the  professors  and 
lecturers  paid  no  attention  to  the  students.  I  had 
read  voraciously,  but  not  always  wisely.  Seeley  in- 
troduced me  to  Carlyle,  Maurice  and  Coleridge. 
Without  intending  it,  he  made  it  impossible  for  me 
to  carry  out  my  original  purpose  of  taking  holy 
orders.  That  is  to  say,  the  teaching  of  Maurice, 
acting  on  a  mind  very  little  attracted  by  the  preva- 
lent orthodoxy,  which  was  still  Calvinist  and  Evan- 
gelical, caused  a  gradual  revolt,  which  was  quite 
unconscious  until  the  time  came  when  I  was  forced 
to  contemplate  the  situation  seriously.  This,  how- 
ever, came  afterwards. 

Among  these  men  —  I  mean  of  my  own  time  — 
incomparably  the  most  brilliant,  the  finest  scholar, 
the  most  remarkable  man  from  every  point  of 
view,  was  Calverley.  He  was  the  hero  of  a  hundred 
tales  ;  all  the  audacious  things,  all  the  witty  things, 
all  the  clever  things,  were  fathered  upon  him.  It 
is  forty  years  since  his  time,  and  no  doubt  the  same 
audacities,  repartees,  and  things  of  unexpectedness 
which  never  die  have  been  fathered  upon  others,  his 
successors  in  brilliant  talk  and  scholarship.  But 
consider,  to  a  lad  like  myself,  the  delight  of  knowing 

86 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

a  man  who  was  not  only  the  finest  scholar  of  his 
year  —  writing  Latin  verses  which  even  to  eyes  like 
mine  were  charming  —  but  a  man  who  could  play 
and  sing  with  a  grace  and  sweetness  quite  divine,  as 
it  seemed  to  me  ;  who  could  make  parodies  the  most 
ridiculous  and  burlesques  the  most  absurd ;  who 
kept  a  kind  of  open  house  for  his  intimates,  with 
abundance  of  port  and  claret  —  he  was  the  only  man 
in  college  who  kept  claret ;  whose  English  verses 
were  as  delightful  as  his  Latin  ;  who  was  always 
sympathetic,  always  helpful,  always  considerate.  In 
my  first  year  I  saw  very  little  of  him.  That  was 
to  be  expected,  considering  that  he  was  already  a 
bachelor.  But  a  fortunate  accident  caused  him  to 
become  then  and  thenceforward  one  of  my  best  and 
kindest  friends.  The  occasion  was  this.  The  college 
offered,  every  year,  a  gold  medal  for  an  English 
Essay;  the  prize  was  provided  by  Bishop  Porteous, 
one  of  the  Christ's  worthies,  1  sent  in  an  essay, 
and  to  my  surprise,  I  obtained  the  prize.  More 
than  this,  I  was  bracketed  with  Calverley.  For  a 
freshman  of  nineteen  to  be  bracketed  equal  in  an 
English  essay  with  the  most  brilliant  scholar  of  his 
time  was  too  much  to  be  expected.  I  have  never 
since  experienced  half  the  joy  at  any  success  which 
I  felt  on  that  occasion.  Needless  to  say  that  I 
have  kept  the  medal  ever  since  in  remembrance  of 
that  bracket. 

My  university  career  was  creditable  but  not 
greatly  distinguished.  I  read  for  double  honours, 
but  only  went  out   in    the    Mathematical    Tripos. 

87 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

My  classical  reading,  however,  was  not  wasted,  be- 
cause you  cannot  well  waste  time  in  reading  Latin 
and  Greek.  I  was  a  scholar,  an  exhibitioner  and  a 
prizeman  of  my  college  ;  I  obtained  a  place  toler- 
ably high  among  the  wranglers  of  my  yean  My 
friends  groaned,  and  said  I  ought  to  have  done 
much  better.  Perhaps,  but  then  I  had  done  very 
much  better  than  they  imagined  in  the  broadening 
of  my  views,  and  in  general  knowledge  and  culture. 
I  completed  my  course  at  Christ's,  as  I  had  begun 
it,  by  taking  a  special  prize — this  time  the  Bache- 
lor's Theological  Prize. 

The  undergraduate's  life  in  the  fifties  differed  in 
many  respects  from  that  of  his  successor  in  the  nine- 
ties. To  begin  with,  there  was  a  far  more  generous 
consumption  of  beer.  Many  reading  men  began 
the  day  with  beer  after  breakfast ;  every  Sunday 
morning  breakfast  was  concluded  with  beer  ;  there 
was  more  beer  for  lunch  ;  nothing  but  beer  was 
taken  with  dinner ;  and  there  was  beer  with  the 
evening  pipe.  Every  college  had  its  own  brewer. 
Four  kinds  of  beer  were  brewed  :  the  "  Audit  "  ale, 
old  and  strong,  the  "  Strong "  ale,  the  "  Bitter," 
and  the  "  Small  "  beer,  or  "  Swipes  ;  "  the  common 
dinner  drink  was  "  Bitter  and  Swipes."  We  dined 
at  four  —  a  most  ungodly  hour,  maintained  in  the 
belief  that  it  would  leave  a  long  evening  for  work ; 
it  left  a  long  evening,  it  is  true,  but  not  much  of  it 
was  spent  in  work.  Every  day  after  hall  the  men 
divided  themselves  into  little  parties  of  four  or  six, 
and  took  wine  in    each    other's    rooms :    with    the 


SIR     IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

reading  men  there  was  not  much  taken,  one  bottle 
of  port  generally  sufficing  for  the  whole  of  the  little 
company.  Chapel  broke  up  the  party  at  six.  Tea 
was  generally  taken  at  seven  or  thereabouts,  when 
work  was  supposed  to  be  resumed  and  carried  on 
as  long  as  each  man  chose  ;  mostly  at  about  ten 
books  were  laid  aside,  pipes  were  produced,  and 
with  a  quart  of  bitter  for  the  two  or  three  gathered 
together,  the  day  was  ended  before  midnight. 

Lectures  went  on  from  nine  to  eleven ;  there  was 
the  private  coach  every  other  day  from  eleven  to 
one  or  two  ;  a  hasty  lunch  of  bread  and  cheese  and 
beer,  or  of  bread  and  butter  with  a  glass  of  sherry, 
followed ;  then  the  river,  or  racquets,  or  fives,  or 
a  walk  till  four.  This  was  our  life.  My  own  form 
of  exercise  was  either  boating  or  fives.  I  went 
down  to  the  river  almost  every  afternoon,  rowing 
bow  in  our  first  boat,  which  was  not  very  high  — 
ninth,  I  think.  In  the  long  vacation,  when  the 
narrow  river  was  clearer,  I  went  sculling  a  good 
deal.  I  also  played  fives,  the  only  game  of  ball 
which  I  could  play,  because  it  was  the  only  game  in 
which  I  could  see  the  ball. 

A  few  men  belonged  to  the  Union,  but  not  many. 
There  was  no  amalgamated  club  subscription  ;  the 
cricket  club  and  the  boating  club  were  the  only 
two  which  asked  for  subscriptions.  There  were  no 
athletics  to  speak  of;  the  university  sports  were 
held  on  Fenner's  Ground,  but  not  many  men  took 
part  in  them,  or  even  went  to  look  on.  There  was 
no   football   club    for    the    college ;  there   were    no 

89 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

musical  societies ;  there  was  no  choir  in  the  Chapel ; 
there  were  no  associations  among  the  undergradu- 
ates at  all  except  two  whist  clubs.  The  "  muckle  " 
pewter  belonging  to  one  of  these  clubs  still  adorns 
my  study.  In  some  colleges  they  had  supper  clubs, 
which  meant  spending  a  great  deal  more  than  the 
men  could  afford,  and  drinking  a  great  deal  more 
than  was  good  for  them.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
supper  club  existed  at  Christ's  in  my  time. 

On  Sunday  after  Chapel,  i.e.  about  half-past  ten, 
there  was  always  a  breakfast  of  some  half-dozen 
men ;  the  breakfast  consisted  of  a  solid  cold  pie 
and  the  usual  "  trimmings,"  with  beer  afterwards. 
After  breakfast  we  went  for  a  long  walk.  Cam- 
bridge is  surrounded  by  villages  with  venerable 
churches.  They  are  separated,  it  is  true,  by  three 
or  four  miles  of  flat  and  treeless  country,  but,  in 
the  course  of  a  morning  between  eleven  and  four, 
one  could  cover  a  good  stretch  of  ground.  In 
those  days  the  rustics  still  wore  embroidered  smocks 
on  Sunday  and  the  women  wore  scarlet  flannel 
shawls.  Those  of  the  undergraduates  who  were 
religiously  disposed  indulged  in  a  sort  of  gluttonous 
banquet  of  services.  One  man,  I  remember,  would 
take  a  Sunday  school  at  eight  a.m.,  go  to  chapel  at 
half-past  nine ;  to  a  morning  service  at  eleven ;  to 
the  university  sermon  at  two ;  to  King's  College 
Chapel  at  three ;  to  the  college  chapel  at  six ;  to 
evening  service  in  some  church  of  the  town  at 
seven,  and  end  with  a  prayer  meeting  and  hymn 
singing  in  somebody's  rooms.      But  such  men  were 

90 


SIR      tVALTER      BESANT 

rare.  For  my  own  part,  though  still  proposing  to 
take  orders,  I  was  so  little  moved  by  the  responsi- 
bilities before  me  that  though  it  was  necessary,  in 
order  to  obtain  the  proper  college  testimonials,  to 
attend  three  celebrations  of  Holy  Communion  in 
the  three  years  of  residence,  I  forgot  this  require- 
ment, and,  on  discovering  the  omission,  attended 
all  three  in  the  last  two  terms.  This  was  thought 
somewhat  scandalous,  and  I  nearly  lost  my  college 
certificate  in  consequence. 

As  for  the  literary  tastes  of  my  times,  Tennyson, 
Kingsley  and  Carlyle  were  in  everybody's  hands, 
with  Dickens  of  course  as  the  first  favourite.  It  is 
wonderful  that  no  one  seems  to  have  heard  of 
Robert  Browning,  but  I  am  quite  certain  that  I  read 
nothing  of  Browning  until  after  going  down.  Yet 
we  knew,  and  read,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  Coleridge, 
Byron,  Scott  —  in  a  word,  all  the  poets.  Another 
omission  is  Thackeray.  I  cannot  remember  when 
I  first  read  Vanity  Fair  and  the  smaller  things ;  but 
I  fear  that  they  did  not  impress  me,  as  they  should 
have  done,  with  anything  like  the  true  sense  of  the 
writer's  greatness.  It  must  be  remembered  that 
literary  circles  were  then  very  few  and  very  limited. 
We  were  most  of  us  country  lads,  who  were  still 
reading  the  literature  of  the  past.  To  us,  it  was 
more  important  to  study  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
Dryden,  Pope,  Addison,  Fielding  and  the  other 
great  writers  who  were  gone,  than  to  be  inquiring 
about  Thackeray's  last  work.  We  knew  nothing 
and  cared  nothing  about  the  literary  gossip  of  the 

91 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

time ;  we  made  no  inquiries  about  the  literary  men 
of  the  day ;  some  of  the  men  read  Evangelical  books; 
most  read  nothing  at  all ;  a  few,  as  I  have  said,  tried 
to  get  some  mastery  over  English  literature  as  a 
continuous  development  —  but  they  were  very  few. 
The  ignorance  and  the  apathy  of  the  great  mass  of 
men  at  Cambridge  as  regards  literature  was  amazing. 
The  best  scholars  in  Greek  and  Latin  only  regarded 
English  poetry  as  a  medium  to  be  rendered  into 
Greek  Iambics  or  Latin  Lyrics  ;  the  mathematicians, 
as  a  rule,  knew  and  cared  for  nothing  outside  their 
mathematics. 

As  for  the  profession  of  letters,  that,  in  any  shape, 
was  regarded  with  pity  and  contempt.  The  late 
Tom  Taylor,  sometime  Fellow  of  Trinity  and  after- 
wards dramatist,  man  of  letters,  and  editor  o^  Punch, 
was  always  spoken  of  by  his  old  friend,  the  tutor 
of  Christ's,  as  "  poor  Tom  Taylor  !  "  Yet  "  poor 
Tom "  did  very  well ;  made  a  little  noise  in  his 
own  day;  lived  in  plenty  and  comfort;  and  among 
literary  folk  was  well  regarded.  The  literary  life, 
however,  was  still  languishing  in  contempt.  Writers, 
by  profession  were  many  of  them  hacks,  dependents, 
Bohemians,  and  disreputable  in  their  manners.  So, 
at  least,  they  were  regarded;  and,  if  one  reads  about 
the  writers  of  the  forties  and  the  fifties,  not  without 
some  reason. 

The  only  journalism  that  was  accounted  worthy 
of  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar  was  the  writing  of 
leaders  for  the  Times.  When  the  penny  news- 
papers began,  great  was  the  derision  heaped  upon 

92 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

the  "  young  lions "  by  their  contemporaries  who 
started  the  Saturday  Review.  The  university,  in 
fact,  considered  only  two  professions :  the  Church, 
which  included  lectureships,  professorships,  and 
fellowships  at  the  colleges;  and  the  Bar.  Nothing 
else  was  thought  worthy  of  a  scholar.  School- 
mastering  was  a  refuge,  not  a  profession ;  art  was 
an  unknown  calling  —  to  the  university  ;  the  other 
professions,  as  architecture,  the  work  of  the  actuary, 
engineering,  science  of  all  kinds,  were  not  recog- 
nised. They  belonged,  perhaps,  to  University 
College,  London,  and  the  current  and  kindly  name 
for  that  institution  was  "  Stinkomalee." 

I  have  mentioned  the  Saturday  Review.  That 
paper  first  appeared  in  my  undergraduate  days,  and 
did  more  to  create  journalism  as  a  profession  than 
would  be  believed  at  the  present  moment,  when 
journalists  are  recruited  from  all  classes.  It  was 
understood,  at  the  outset,  that  it  was  wholly  written 
by  university  men,  and  mostly  by  Cambridge  men  ; 
their  names  were  whispered  —  the  names  of  dons. 
The  paper  assumed  the  manner  of  authority ;  such 
authority  as  a  scholar  has  a  right  to  exercise ;  that 
is  to  say,  a  superior  manner,  as  of  deeper  and  wider 
knowledge.  It  heaped  derision  on  the  shams  of 
the  time ;  and  especially  on  the  shams  which  had 
gathered  round  the  Evangelical  party  ;  the  pietistic 
sermons ;  the  snuffling  hypocrisies ;  the  half-con- 
cealed self-seeking,  the  narrowness,  and  the  tyranny 
of  it;  the  scamped  services  and  the  wretched  build- 
ings  and   villainous    singing.      Never   was   a   party 

93 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

more  handsomely  banged  and  beaten  week  after 
week;  never  was  derision  more  piled  up  with  every 
number  than  over  the  cant  and  the  unreality  of  this 
party.  On  Sunday  the  paper  became  part  of  the 
breakfast;  it  was  read  with  a  savage  joy.  I  think, 
looking  back,  that  the  slating  and  the  bludgeoning 
were  quite  too  savage ;  yet  the  fearlessness  with 
which  the  bludgeon  or  the  rapier  was  handled 
impressed  the  world.  None  of  the  Evangelical 
lights  were  spared.  Lord  Shaftesbury  heard,  to  his 
disgust,  that  his  deity  was  an  old  man  of  an  un- 
certain temper  sitting  on  a  cloud  ;  a  great  light  in 
the  Evangelical  party  was  shown  by  his  own 
recorded  prayers  before  going  into  the  Senate 
House  to  have  treated  the  Almighty  as  a  judicious 
coach  ;  the  early  extravagances  of  Charles  Spurgeon, 
then  regarded  in  certain  circles  as  another  Wesley, 
were  exposed;  the  missionaries  of  the  narrow  school 
were  handled  with  a  dexterity  which  Sydney  Smith 
might  have  envied.  The  excuse  for  this  savagery 
was  that  the  time  wanted  it.  I  do  not  think  that  a 
paper  conducted  on  the  same  lines  would  now  do 
any  good  at  all ;  but  we  want  now,  and  want  it 
badly,  a  paper  written  wholly  by  scholars  who  will 
speak  with  the  authority  of  scholars.  The  Saturday 
Review  began  to  fall  off  when  it  began  to  lose  its 
old  authority. 

There  was  no  ladies'  society,  or  very  little,  at 
Cambridge.  I  myself  was  so  fortunate  as  to  be 
invited  to  one  or  two  houses  where  there  were 
daughters.     Most  of  the  men   had  no  chance  of 

94 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

speaking  to  a  lady  during  the  whole  of  the  university 
course.  Many  of  our  men  came  from  country 
farms,  or  were  drawn  from  the  "  statesmen "  of 
Cumberland  ;  you  may  imagine,  therefore,  that  they 
were  tolerably  rough.  The  three  years  of  Cambridge 
did  something  for  them,  but  there  were  no  compen- 
sations for  the  loss  of  ladies'  society.  None  of  the 
dons  were  married  ;  the  heads  of  houses  and  the 
professors  alone  were  married.  As  for  the  town,  I 
do  not  think  that  there  was  any  kind  of  intercourse 
between  the  town  of  Cambridge  and  the  colleges. 

The  university,  in  fact,  was  still  a  collection  of 
monastic  establishments.  It  was  the  end  of  a  sleepy 
time,  but  change  was  rapidly  approaching.  I  saw 
the  place,  I  repeat,  as  it  had  been  all  through  the 
eighteenth  century.  With  the  men  of  my  time  I  felt 
the  coming  change.  Close  fellowships  were  thrown 
open ;  close  scholarships  fell  into  the  common 
treasury  of  endowment ;  science  was  beginning  to 
demand  recognition ;  scholars  were  looking  across 
to  Germany  with  envy  ;  the  rule  of  the  Evangelicals 
was  relaxing.  Dissenters  and  Jews  were  beginning 
to  be  admitted  to  the  university.  They  had  to  go 
to  chapel  and  to  pass  the  "  little  go,"  with  its  ex- 
amination upon  Paley's  Evidences  of  Christianity ; 
and  they  could  hold  neither  fellowship  nor  scholar- 
ship. They  were  allowed,  however,  to  go  in  for 
the  Tripos  examinations. 

I  have  omitted  to  allude  to  one  little  distinction 
that  I  gained.  In  my  second  year,  Calverley  an- 
nounced an  examination  for  a  prize  in  the  study  of 

95 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

the  Pickwick  Papers.  The  examination  was  held  in 
the  evening  in  his  own  rooms.  If  I  remember 
aright  there  were  about  ten  candidates,  most  of 
whom  had  no  chance  whatever.  The  paper,  a  copy 
of  which  is  appended,  is  one  of  the  cleverest  things 
that  Calverley  ever  did.  We  were  allowed,  I  think, 
two  hours,  or  perhaps  three.  When  the  papers  were 
handed  in,  we  refreshed  ourselves  after  our  labours 
with  a  supper  of  oysters,  beer,  and  milk-punch.  The 
result  gave  me  the  first  prize,  and  Skeat  the  second. 
There  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  about  the  exami- 
nation ;  copies  of  the  paper  were  in  great  request 
all  over  the  university ;  and  for  a  whole  day  Skeat 
and  I  were  famous. 

Another  little  episode.  One  day  Calverley,  then 
a  fellow,  stopped  me  in  the  court  and  invited  me 
to  his  rooms  after  hall.  "  I  've  got  a  young  French- 
man," he  said.  "  He's  clever.  Come  and  be 
amused."  I  went.  The  young  Frenchman  spoke 
English  as  well  as  anybody  ;  he  told  quantities  of 
stories  in  a  quiet,  irresponsible  way,  as  if  he  was  an 
outsider  looking  on  at  the  world.  No  one  went  to 
chapel  that  evening.  After  the  port,  which  went 
round  with  briskness  for  two  or  three  hours,  the 
young  Frenchman  went  to  the  piano  and  began  to 
sing  in  a  sweet,  flexible,  high  baritone  or  tenor. 
Presently  somebody  else  took  his  place  at  the  instru- 
ment, and  he,  with  Calverley,  and  two  or  three 
dummies,  performed  a  Royal  Italian  Opera  in  very 
fine  style.  The  young  Frenchman's  name  was 
George    Du    Maurier.     Years    afterwards,  when    I 

96 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R      B  E  S  J  N  T 

came  to  know  him,  I  reminded  him  of  this  bliss- 
ful evening  —  which  he  remembered  perfectly.  One 
of  the  songs  he  sang  in  French  had  a  very  sweet  and 
touching  air.  Calverley  remembered  it,  and  Sendall 
wrote  some  verses  for  it.  They  are  preserved  as  a 
footnote  to  some  reminiscences  of  mine  in  Sendall's 
memoir  of  Calverley,  his  brother-in-law. 

And  so  my  time  came  to  an  end.  What  did 
Cambridge  do  for  me  ^.  Well,  it  seems  as  if  it  did 
everything  for  me.  For  a  time,  at  least,  it  knocked 
on  the  head  all  my  literary  aspirations.  As  regards 
literature,  indeed,  I  understood  that  I  had  to  study 
the  poets  of  my  own  speech  seriously,  and  I  began 
to  do  so.  Writing  had  to  wait.  It  made  holy 
orders  impossible  for  me,  though,  as  yet,  I  did  not 
understand  this  important  fact.  It  widened  the 
whole  of  my  mind  in  every  imaginable  way.  It  seems 
to  me  now,  looking  back,  that  except  for  my  three 

early  years  with  H.  A ,  my  education  only  began 

when  I  entered  college ;  imperfect  as  it  was  when  I 
left,  I  had,  at  least,  acquired  standards  and  models. 
I  was  reputed,  I  believe,  to  have  failed  in  my  degree. 
Well,  there  are  so  many  other  useful  things  besides 
mathematics,  and  I  was  quite  high  enough  for  any 
mathematical  powers  that  I  possessed.  I  had  ob- 
tained, in  addition,  much  Latin  and  Greek,  and  a 
certain  insight  into  Divinity,  with  a  good  solid  foun- 
dation of  English,  French,  and  German  literature, 
read  by  myself  There  is  another  point.  Much 
more  in  those  days  than  at  present,  when  everything 
is  levelled,  was  Cambridge  a  school  of  manners. 
7  97 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

Consider:  we  were  all  thrown  together  in  a  small  col- 
lege, on  terms  of  intimacy.  There  was,  as  I  have  said, 
the  son  of  the  country  gentleman  of  good  family; 
the  son  of  the  country  clergyman;  the  son  of  the 
London  merchant;  the  son  of  the  London  physician, 
barrister,  or  solicitor;  the  lad  from  the  country  town; 
the  lad  from  the  farm  ;  the  lad  from  the  manufac- 
turing centre ;  the  son  of  the  tradesman :  all  these 
lads  lived  together  in  amity.  But  there  were  leaders 
among  us,  and  manners  were  softened — things  were 
learned  which  had  not  been  guessed  before.  New 
habits  of  thought,  new  points  of  refinement,  a  wider 
mind,  came  out  of  this  intimacy  of  so  many  different 
youths  from  different  homes.  If  I  may  judge  from 
myself,  the  effect  of  Cambridge  upon  the  youth  of 
the  time  was  wholly  and  unreservedly  beneficial. 

AN    EXAMINATION    PAPER. 

"THE   POSTHUMOUS    PAPERS    OF   THE    PICKWICK 
CLUB." 

Cambridge  (1857). 

1.  Mention  any  occasions  on  which  it  is  specified  that 
the  Fat  Boy  was  not  asleep;  and  that  (i)  Mr,  Pickwick 
and  (2)  Mr.  Weller,  senior,  ran.  Deduce  from  expres- 
sions used  on  one  occasion  Mr.  Pickwick's  maximum  of 
speed. 

2.  Translate  into  coherent  English,  adding  a  note  wher- 
ever a  word,  a  construction,  or  an  allusion  requires  it :  — 

'•'•  Go   on,    Jemmy  —  like   black-eyed  Susan  —  all 
in  the  Downs  "  —  ^'  Smart  chap  that  cabman  — 
handled   his  fives  well  —  but  if  I  'd  been   your 
98 


SIR      TVALTER      BESANT 

friend  in  the  green  jemmy  —  punch  his  head  — 
pig's  whisper  —  pieman,  too." 
Elucidate  the  expres3ion,  "  the  Spanish  Traveller,"  and 
the  "  narcotic  bedstead." 

3.  Who  were  Mr.  Staple,  Goodwin,  Mr.  Brooks, 
Villam,  Mrs.  Bunkin,  "  Old  Nobs,"  "  cast-iron  head," 
"  young  Bantam  "  ? 

4.  What  operation  was  performed  on  Tom  Smart's 
chair  ?  Who  little  thinks  that  in  which  pocket,  of  what 
garment,  in  where,  he  has  left  what,  entreating  him  to  re- 
turn to  whom,  with  how  many  what,  and  all  how  big  ^. 

5.  Give,  approximately,  the  height  of  Mr.  Dubbley ; 
and,  accurately,  the  Christian  names  of  Mr.  Grummer, 
Mrs.  Raddle,  and  the  Fat  Boy  j  also  the  surname  of  the 
Zephyr. 

6.  "  Mr.  Weller's  knowledge  of  London  was  extensive 
and  peculiar."      Illustrate  this  by  a  reference  to  the  facts. 

7.  Describe  the  Rebellion  which  had  irritated  Mr.  Nup- 
kins  on  the  day  of  Mr.  Pickwick's  arrest. 

8.  Give  in  full  Samuel  Weller's  first  compliment  to 
Mary,  and  his  father's  critique  upon  the  same  young  lady. 
What  church  was  on  the  valentine  that  first  attracted 
Mr.  Samuel's  eye  in  the  shop  ? 

9.  Describe  the  common  Profeel-machine. 

10.  State  the  component  parts  of  dog's  nose;  and  sim- 
plify the  expression  '■'•  taking  a  grinder." 

11.  On  finding  his  principal  in  the  pound,  Mr.  Weller 
and  the  town-beadle  varied  directly.  Show  that  the  latter 
w^as  ultimately  eliminated,  and  state  the  number  of  rounds 
in  the  square  which  is  not  described. 

12.  "Any  think  for  air  and  exercise;  as  the  wery  old 
donkey  observed  ven  they  voke  him  up  from  his  deathbed 
to  carry  ten  gen'lmen  to  Greenwich  in  a  tax-cart."      Illus- 

99 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

trate  this  by  stating  any  remark  recorded  in  the  Pickwick 
Papers  to  have  been  made  by  a  (previously)  dumb  animal, 
with  the  circumstances  under  which  he  made  it. 

13.  What  kind  of  cigars  did  Mr.  Ben  Allen  chiefly 
smoke,  and  where  did  he  knock  and  take  naps  alternately, 
under  the  impression  that  it  was  his  home  ? 

14.  What  was  the  ordinary  occupation  of  Mr.  Sawyer's 
boy  ?  whence  did  Mr.  Allen  derive  the  idea  that  there  was 
a  special  destiny  between  Mr.  S.  and  Arabella  ? 

15.  Describe  Weller's  Method  of  "gently  indicating 
his  presence  "  to  the  young  lady  in  the  garden  ;  and  the 
form  of  salutation  usual  among  the  coachmen  of  the 
period. 

16.  State  any  incidents  you  know  in  the  career  of  Tom 
Martin,  butcher,  previous  to  his  incarceration. 

17.  Give  Weller's  Theories  for  the  extraction  of  Mr. 
Pickwick  from  the  Fleet.  Where  was  his  wife's  will 
found  ? 

18.  How  did  the  old  lady  make  a  memorandum,  and  of 
what,  at  whist  ?  Show  that  there  were  at  least  three  times 
as  many  fiddles  as  harps  in  Muggleton  at  the  time  of  the 
ball  at  Manor  Farm. 

19.  What  is  a  red-faced  Nixon  ? 

20.  Write  down  the  chorus  to  each  verse  of  Mr. 
S.  Weller's  song,  and  a  sketch  of  the  mottle-faced  man's 
excursus  on  it.  Is  there  any  ground  for  conjecturing  that 
he  (Sam)  had  more  brothers  than  one  ? 

21.  How  many  lumps  of  sugar  went  into  the  Shepherd's 
liquor  as  a  rule  ?  and  is  any  exception  recorded  ? 

22.  What  seal  was  on  Mr.  Winkle's  letter  to  his  father? 
What  penitential  attitude  did  he  assume  before  Mr.  Pick- 
wick r 

23.  "She's  a-swelling   visibly."     When  did  the  same 

100 


SIR      fFJLTER     BESANT 

phenomenon  occur  again,  and  what  fluid  caused  the  pres- 
sure on  the  body  in  the  latter  case  ? 

24.  How  did  Mr.  Weller,  senior,  define  the  Funds,  and 
what  view  did  he  take  of  Reduced  Consols  ?  in  what  terms 
is  his  elastic  force  described,  when  he  assaulted  Mr.  Stiggins 
at  the  meeting  ?     Write  down  the  name  of  the  meeting. 

25.  Jlpol3aTO'yv(o/x(ov:  a  good  judge  of  cattle;  hence, 
a  good  judge  of  character.  Note  on  ^sch.  Ag.  — Illus- 
trate the  theory  involved  by  a  remark  of  the  parent  Weller. 

26.  Give  some  account  of  the  word  "  fanteeg,"  and 
hazard  any  conjecture  explanatory  of  the  expression  "  My 
Prooshan  Blue,"  applied  by  Mr.  Samuel  to  Mr.  Tony 
Weller. 

27.  In  developing  to  P.M.  his  views  of  a  proposition, 
what  assumption  did  Mr.  Pickwick  feel  justified  in  making? 

28.  Deduce  from  a  remark  of  Mr.  Weller,  junior,  the 
price  per  mile  of  cabs  at  the  period. 

29.  What  do  you  know  of  the  hotel  next  the  Bull  at 
Rochester  ? 

30.  Who,  besides  Mr.  Pickwick,  is  recorded  to  have 
worn  gaiters  ? 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 


Chapter  VI 

A   TRAMP   ABROAD 

TO  some  it  may  be  astonishing  to  find  young 
men  eager  to  get  through  their  university 
course  in  order  to  get  back  to  the  old 
school  in  which  they  want  to  work  for  the  whole  of 
their  lives.  Yet  there  is  no  kind  of  work  more 
delightful  to  those  who  are  born  for  it  than  that  of 
a  master  in  a  public  school.  Any  one  with  ordinary 
powers  of  insight  and  sympathy  can  teach  a  pupil 
willing  to  be  taught.  The  work  of  the  schoolmaster 
is  more  than  to  teach  the  willing ;  it  is  to  convert 
the  unwilling  into  the  willing ;  to  make  the  indolent 
active,  to  stimulate  the  flagging,  and  to  watch  over 
every  boy  under  his  care.  There  are  the  pleasures 
of  authority  and  power  for  him ;  he  is  an  un- 
questioned dictator ;  he  is  a  judge  ;  he  awards  pun- 
ishments and  prizes.  It  is  not  a  line  that  makes 
many  demands  upon  the  intellect.  Most  school- 
masters never  advance  beyond  the  routine  of  their 
daily  work ;  the  mathematician  forgets  the  higher 
mathematics ;  the  chemist  ceases  his  research ;  the 
scholar  works  no  more  at  his  subjects ;  all  are 
content  with  the  knowledge  that  they  have  acquired, 
and  with  the  equipment  that  is  wanted  for  the  day's 
work. 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

On  the  other  hand,  to  one  who  is  not  born  for 
that  kind  of  work  the  position  is  by  no  means 
pleasant,  and  to  some  it  is  intolerable.  In  my  own 
case  it  was  not  pleasant,  but  it  was  not  intolerable. 
After  a  few  months  of  looking  about  and  waiting, 
during  which  I  made  certain  first  attempts  at  jour- 
nalism, I  took  a  mastership  in  a  school.  The  school 
was  Leamington  College,  and  I  was  chosen  as 
mathematical  master,  with  the  understanding  that  I 
was  to  be  ordained  and  to  become,  in  addition, 
chaplain  to  the  college.  The  head-master  at  the 
time  was  the  Rev.  E.  St.  John  Parry,  a  good  scholar 
and,  I  think,  a  good  schoolmaster.  The  town  was 
full  of  pleasant  people.  Some  of  them  were  hospi- 
table to  me,  and  I  have  very  friendly  recollections 
of  the  place.  The  boys  belonged  chiefly  to  the 
higher  class  in  the  town.  I  formed  an  alliance  with 
another  master.  We  took  a  small  house  and  made 
ourselves  comfortable ;  the  hours  were  by  no  means 
long,  and  we  were  not,  as  is  the  case  with  many 
schools,  surrounded  by  boys  all  day  and  every 
evening. 

While  at  Leamington  I  had  a  great  experience.  I 
have  said  that  in  those  days  very  few  of  the  under- 
graduates knew  anything  about  foreign  travel.  In 
my  own  case,  for  instance,  at  twenty-three  years  of 
age  what  had  I  seen  ?  I  had  never  been  abroad  at 
all.  Of  England  I  had  seen  London,  Cambridge, 
Ely,  Winchester,  Liverpool,  my  native  town,  and 
the  Isle  of  Wight.  It  seems  to  a  modern  young 
man  who  runs  about  everywhere,  and  is  more  fa- 

103 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

miliar  with  Cairo  than  with  Cheapside,  a  poor  show. 
Mine,  however,  was  not  by  any  means  an  exceptional 
case.  The  younger  dons  had  begun  to  travel :  in 
the  famous  tour  —  is  it  still  famous  ?  —  of  "  Brown, 
Jones,  and  Robinson,"  one  at  least  of  the  three  was 
a  Cambridge  man.  They  took  reading  parties  to 
the  Lakes  and  into  Scotland  —  is  Clough's  poem,  his 
long-vacation  pastoral,  "  The  Bothie  of  Tober-na- 
Vuolich,"  still  remembered?  They  went  about 
with  knapsacks,  just  as  the  young  fellows  with  bi- 
cycles now  go  about,  but  they  walked.  And  they 
had  begun  the  craze  for  Alpine  climbing,  which  is 
still  with  us,  somewhat  moderated.  It  was  the 
beginning  of  athletics.  The  men  who  trudged  with 
the  knapsacks  were  called  "  Mussulmen  "  —  a  subtle 
and  crafty  joke. 

It  was  with  the  greatest  joy  that  I  received  a 
proposal  to  join  Calverley  and  Peile  on  a  walking 
tour.  They  proposed  to  try  the  Tyrol,  then  off  the 
beaten  track,  with  no  modern  hotels  and  little  or  no 
experience  of  tourists.  With  us  was  Samuel  Walton, 
a  Fellow  of  St.  John's,  one  of  the  first  of  those 
who  braved  the  world  and  wore  a  beard.  He  was 
also  one  of  the  most  kindly  and  amiable  of  creatures  ; 
well  read,  sympathetic,  always  in  good  temper,  and 
the  best  travelling  companion  possible.  He  became 
afterwards  Rector  of  Fulbourne,  and  died  at  two- 
and-thirty  of  consumption. 

It  was  arranged  that  I  should  join  Walton  at 
Heidelberg,  where  he  had  been  learning  German  for 
three  or  four  months ;  that  we  were  to  go  on  to 

104 


SIR      WALTER     BESANT 

Innsbruck,  where  Calverley  and  Peile  would  join  us, 
and  that  then  the  knapsack  business  would  begin. 
I  carried  with  me  a  flannel  suit,  which  at  the  outset 
looked  quite  nice  and  cool ;  I  wore  a  pair  of  stout 
boots  studded  with  nails  for  walking  on  ice  ;  in  my 
knapsack  I  had  a  spare  shirt,  a  nightshirt,  another 
collar,  a  brush  and  comb,  socks,  handkerchiefs, 
toothbrush,  pipe  and  tobacco.  I  had  no  change  of 
clothes,  and  my  flannels  were  a  light  grey  in  colour. 
Thus  equipped,  I  started  for  a  six  weeks'  journey. 
The  other  men  were  as  lightly  clad  and  as  slenderly 
provided. 

It  was  all  perfectly  delightful.  I  believe,  but  I 
am  not  sure,  that  I  went  through  by  way  of  Ostend 
to  Cologne,  a  journey  then  of  about  twenty-four 
hours.  From  Cologne  I  got  to  Konigswinter,  saw 
the  Drachenfels,  and  went  up  the  Rhine.  I  remem- 
ber that  there  was  a  delightful  American  family  on 
board  the  boat.  I  made  my  way  to  Heidelberg,  and 
I  found  Walton  waiting  for  me.  The  other  day  I 
was  at  Heidelberg  again,  and  I  tried  to  find  the 
place  where  we  stayed,  but  failed.  It  was  a  lodging, 
not  a  hotel,  and  we  took  our  meals  at  a  students' 
restaurant,  where  things  were  cheap  and  plentiful, 
and  where  the  wine  was  of  a  thinness  and  sourness 
inconceivable  to  one  whose  ideas  of  wine  were  based 
on  port  and  sherry.  We  saw  the  students  marching 
about  in  their  flat  caps,  with  shawls  over  their 
shoulders  ;  we  saw  them  in  their  beer-drinking,  and 
we  saw  them  at  a  duel  with  swords  —  one  is  glad  to 
have  seen  so  much.     We  wandered  over  the  castle 

105 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

—  there  was  no  inclined  railway  up  the  hill  in  those 
days  ;  we  bathed  in  the  Neckar,  ice-cold  and  swift; 
we  climbed  the  opposite  hill  and  discovered  another 
castle.  We  talked  German  religiously  —  there  were 
maidens  at  our  lodgings,  who  made  it  pleasant  to 
learn  their  language.  I  had  read  a  good  deal  of 
German  at  school  and  afterwards,  so  that  I  had  a 
foundation  in  grammar  and  vocabulary.  One  wants 
very  little  grammar  to  get  along  in  German,  and  to 
understand  it.  It  is  the  vocabulary  that  is  wanted. 
By  dint  of  finding  out  the  names  of  everything  in 
German,  I  made  rapid  progress  in  a  helter-skelter 
way.  I  was  sorry  to  leave  Heidelberg,  and  should 
have  been  content  to  give  up  the  mountains  and  the 
glaciers,  and  to  complete  my  German  studies  in  this 
very  pleasant  manner. 

However,  we  had  to  go.  I  forget  the  geography; 
we  went  on  to  Innsbruck,  somehow.  I  remember 
that  we  passed  a  lovely  lake,  called,  I  think,  the 
Aachen  See ;  that  we  stopped  at  a  fashionable  hotel 
filled  with  Germans  ;  and  that  we  took  two  or  three 
preliminary  climbs  in  the  hills.  However,  we  got 
to  Innsbruck;  and  while  we  waited  for  the  other 
two,  we  climbed  a  big  rolling  mountain,  not  a  peak, 
close  to  the  ancient  town.  Then  the  other  two 
men  came  and  we  began  our  march. 

Where  did  we  go  ?  I  don't  know.  Down  the 
Zeller  Thai,  where  they  sang  to  us  in  the  evening, 
and  we  sang  to  them.  Calverley  had  a  pleasing 
tenor,  Walton  an  excellent  bass,  and  my  voice, 
though  of  poor  quality,  was  tolerably  high.      We 

io6 


SIR      M^ALTER      BESANT 

sang  the  old  glees,  "All  among  the  Barley"; 
"Cares  that  Canker";  "Hark!  the  Lark";  and 
so  on.  The  Tyrolese  were  good  enough  to 
applaud.  They  were,  I  remember,  extremely 
friendly. 

Then  we  came  to  a  mountain  —  was  it  the 
Gross  Glockner .?  —  which  we  proposed  to  climb. 
Heavens!  How  high  it  looked!  and  how  steep 
were  the  sides  !  I,  for  one,  was  delighted,  I  con- 
fess, when  our  guides  came  and  said  that  the 
mountain  was  too  dangerous ;  that  there  had  been 
so  much  rain  that  the  snow  slopes  were  not  safe ;  in 
a  word,  they  would  not  take  us. 

So  we  wandered  elsewhere.  I  remember  getting 
to  a  hut  high  on  a  mountain  side  ;  they  gave  us 
something  to  eat ;  we  slept  on  straw ;  in  the  morn- 
ing we  started  at  half-past  four  with  a  breakfast  of 
fried  eggs  and  coarse  bread  and  melted  snow.  We 
had  before  us  a  "  low  pass."  We  should  get  to 
our  halting  place  at  four  or  five  in  the  afternoon. 
Unfortunately,  we  took  a  wrong  line  and  crossed  a 
high  pass,  not  a  low  pass.  We  had  no  food  of  any 
kind  with  us ;  only  a  single  flask  with  schnaps ; 
it  was  the  hardest  day's  work  I  had  ever  done. 
Finally  we  got  to  our  inn  at  half-past  eight  in  the 
evening.  They  gave  us  veal  cutlets  and  bread ;  and 
after  supper,  I,  for  my  part,  lay  down  on  the  floor 
and  slept  till  eight  next  morning. 

It  was  a  glorious  time,  but  the  days  passed  all  too 
quickly.  At  Meran  I  had  to  leave  the  party  and 
get  home  as  fast  as  I  could.     The  flannel  suit  was 

107 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

a  sight  to  behold.  Cruel  thorns  had  lacerated  the 
skirts,  rains  had  fallen  upon  it,  discolouration  dis- 
figured it,  and  I  had  to  get  through  Switzerland 
and  France  in  the  most  disreputable  rig  possible  to 
imagine.  Part  of  my  journey  was  a  night  spent  in 
a  diligence.  My  fellow  passengers  were  two  nuns, 
or  sisters.  One  of  them  was  elderly,  the  other  was 
young,  and  we  talked  the  whole  night  through. 
They  asked  endless  questions  about  England. 
We  were  not  tired  or  sleepy  in  the  least ;  and 
when  we  parted  it  was  like  the  parting  of  old 
friends.  My  very  dear  ladies,  I  cherish  the 
memory   of  that  night.      It  was   all   too  short. 

I  remember  stopping  at  a  fashionable  hotel  in 
Zurich,  where  I  took  an  obscure  corner  and  hoped 
to  escape  observation.  I  arrived  in  Paris  with  a 
five-pound  note  and  a  few  coppers  at  half-past  five 
or  six  in  the  morning.  What  was  I  to  do  ?  I 
found  a  restaurant  and  a  waiter,  looking  very  sleepy, 
sweeping  out  the  place.  I  told  him  that  I  wanted 
change,  and  showed  him  the  note.  He  took  me  to 
a  den  up  ever  so  many  stairs,  where  sat  an  English- 
man of  villainous  aspect.  He  gave  me  a  handful 
of  French  money,  which  he  said  was  the  equivalent 
of  the  note,  less  his  commission.  I  daresay  he  was 
a  perfectly  honest  man,  but  I  could  never  under- 
stand how  it  was  that,  after  taking  breakfast  at  my 
restaurant  and  travelling  second  class  by  Dieppe  to 
Portsmouth,  I  had  only  fourpence  left  out  of  my 
five-pound  note. 

I  came  back  to  Leamington  to  find  trouble  brew- 
io8 


SIR      SALTER      BESANT 

ing.  The  governors  of  the  college  wanted  to  know 
when  I  was  going  to  be  ordained.  By  this  time  I 
had  passed  the  voluntary  theological  examination  at 
Cambridge,  and  had  nothing  more  to  do  except  to 
pass  the  Bishop's  examination.  I  put  myself  in 
communication  with  the  Bishop's  secretary,  and 
with  great  depression  of  spirits  prepared  myself  for 
perjury,  because  by  this  time  I  understood  that  the 
white  tie  would  choke  me. 

Then  I  heard  that  there  were  rumours  among 
the  governors.  Somebody  said  that  he  feared  — 
he  was  told  —  it  was  rumoured  —  that  I  was  not 
sound  on  the  Atonement.  And  day  by  day  the 
truth  was  borne  in  upon  me  that  I  was  not  called 
and  chosen  for  the  office  of  deacon  in  the  Church 
of  England. 

Christmas  came.  I  was  to  be  ordained  in  the 
spring ;  the  Bishop  had  my  name ;  my  credentials 
had  been  sent  to  him.  And  then  —  oh  !  happi- 
ness !  —  a  door  of  release  was  thrown  open.  My 
friend  Ebden,  then  a  junior  in  the  Colonial  Office, 
came  to  see  me.  In  his  hand,  so  to  speak,  he  held 
two  colonial  professorships.  It  seemed  not  im- 
probable that  I  might  have  either  of  them  if  I  chose. 
Then  I  should  not  have  to  take  orders ;  then  I 
should  see  something  more  of  the  world ;  then  I 
should  travel  across  the  ocean.  If  I  chose  ?  Of 
course  I  chose.  I  jumped  at  the  chance.  I  sent 
in  my  name.  I  was  appointed.  My  choice  was 
for  the  Mauritius,  because  the  other  place  was  in 
South  Africa,  and  I    don't  like  snakes.      So  when  I 

109 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

returned  to  Leamington  it  was  to  give  in  my  resig- 
nation in  three  months,  with  the  joy  of  feehng  that 
I  need  not  trouble  the  Bishop  of  Worcester  —  to 
whom  I  forgot  to  send  an  excuse  —  and  that  no 
one  thenceforward  would  so  much  as  ask  whether 
I  was  sound  on  the  Atonement. 

It  was  a  plunge  ;  it  was  an  escape.  Whither  I 
was  going,  what  adventures  I  should  meet  with, 
how  things  would  end,  I  knew  not,  nor  did  I  ask 
myself  Why  should  one  pry  into  the  future? 
Though  I  could  not  suspect  the  fact,  I  was  about 
to  equip  myself  —  with  travel,  with  the  society  of 
all  kinds  of  men,  with  the  acquisition  of  things 
practical  —  for  the  real  solid  work  of  my  life,  which 
has  been  the  observation  of  men  and  women,  and 
the  telling  of  stories  about  them. 


SIR      WA  LT  ER     B  ES  A  NT 


Chapter  VII 

L'iLE   DE   FRANCE 

IT  was  before  the  time  of  the  Suez  Canal,  and 
before  the  time  of  big  liners.  The  ship  that 
carried  me  to  Alexandria  was  called  one  of 
the  finest  in  the  fleet  of  the  Peninsular  and  Oriental 
Company.  She  was  a  paddle-wheel  of  twelve  hun- 
dred tons,  named  the  Indus.  It  was  before  the 
time  of  competitive  companies.  The  P.  and  O. 
managed  things  their  own  way  ;  their  rates  were 
high,  but  they  treated  the  passengers  like  guests  in 
a  country  house.  There  was  no  drinking  on  board, 
but  at  lunch  and  dinner  bottled  beer  and  wine  were 
put  on  the  table,  as  at  a  gentleman's  house.  After 
dinner  the  wine  remained  on  the  table  for  a  short 
time ;  in  the  evening  whiskey  and  brandy  were  put 
out  for  half  an  hour  only.  A  band  was  on  board, 
which  played  every  afternoon ;  the  passengers 
danced  on  deck  ;  the  ship  ploughed  her  way  slowly 
through  the  waters ;  in  the  cabins  all  lights  were 
out  at  nine  —  or  ten  —  I  forget  which.  As  a 
junior,  I  had  a  bunk  in  a  cabin  below  the  main 
deck.  There  were  five  berths  assigned  to  young 
fellows  going  out  to  India ;  the  place  was  dark  at 
mid-day,  and  at  night  the  darkness  was  Egyptian. 
The  weather,  however,  was   fine,  and  one   was  on 

III 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

deck  from  early  morning  till  nightfall,  and  one  was 
young,  and  small  discomforts  mattered  nothing. 
Besides,  were  we  not  seeing  the  world  ? 

I  seem  to  remember  every  day  of  that  voyage  : 
the  coast  of  Portugal ;  the  headlands  of  Spain ; 
the  Rock ;  Malta,  where  we  all  went  ashore  and 
saw  the  town  of  Valetta,  the  Cathedral,  and  the 
Palace  of  the   Knights. 

We  landed  at  Alexandria  and  went  on  by  train 
to  Cairo,  where  we  stayed,  I  think,  two  nights,  and 
saw  an  eastern  city  —  it  was  really  eastern  then. 

Then  we  went  on  by  a  shaky  railway  across  the 
desert  to  Suez.  It  was  a  great  joy  actually  to  see 
the  rolling  grey  sand  of  the  desert.  Halfway  over 
we  stopped  at  a  desert  station,  where  they  gave  us 
luncheon.  Then  we  got  to  Suez,  and  here  we 
divided.  The  passengers  for  Mauritius  and  Re- 
union went  on  board  their  little  boat,  and  the 
Bombay  people  went  on  board  their  big  boat. 

Our  boat,  in  fact,  was  a  little  steamer  of  seven 
hundred  tons,  quite  unfit  for  bad  weather.  Fortu- 
nately we  had  none.  But  it  was  in  May,  and  the 
Red  Sea  was  beginning  to  assert  itself  In  the 
cabins  the  heat  was  stifling ;  and  they  were  infested 
with  flying  cockroaches  and  other  creatures  of  prey. 
Therefore  the  whole  company  slept  on  deck.  The 
mattresses  were  lugged  up  and  spread  out,  and  we 
lay  side  by  side,  with  faces  muflled  to  keep  off^  the 
moonshine.  It  was  curious  to  wake  in  the  night 
and  to  see  by  the  light  of  the  moon  the  sleeping  fig- 
ures, and  to  watch  the  waves  in  the  white  light,  and 


SIR      fVJLTER      BESANT 

the  jagged  outline  of  the  mountains  of  Arabia.  In 
the  evening,  when  we  were  near  enough  to  see 
them,  the  rocks  assumed  all  colours,  purple,  blue, 
crimson,  golden.  Among  them  the  mountain  they 
called  Sinai  reared  its  rugged  head,  painted  by  the 
western  glow. 

We  put  in  at  Aden,  and  saw  the  native  village 
and  the  water-works.  Then  we  coasted  round  the 
rockbound  Socotra  and  steered  south  for  the  Sey- 
chelles. I  suppose  there  are  other  islands  in  the 
world  as  beautiful  as  these,  but  I  have  seen  none 
that  could  approach  them  for  the  wonderful  magic 
of  the  hills,  which  slope  down  to  the  water's  edge, 
covered  with  trees  and  clothed  in  colour.  The  hot 
sun  of  the  tropics,  that  knows  no  change,  and  has 
no  season  but  one,  makes  a  long  summer  of  the 
year ;  the  sea  that  washes  the  feet  of  the  hills  is 
aglow  with  a  warm  light  that  makes  it  transparent ; 
fathoms  below  the  ship  one  could  see  the  tangled 
forest  of  weed  lying  still  and  motionless;  above  the 
weed  rolled  slowly  an  enormous  shark. 

I  believe  the  islanders  have  no  energy  ;  no  ambi- 
tions are  left  to  them  after  a  year  or  two  in  the 
place ;  they  have  no  desire  for  wealth  ;  they  leave 
nature  to  grow  a  few  things  for  them  to  send  away  ; 
they  want  very  little  money  ;  they  care  nothing  for 
the  outside  w^orld;  they  lie  in  the  shade,  warmed 
through  and  through  ;  the  air  is  never  scorching 
and  the  heat  never  kills,  for  there  is  always  a 
sea  breeze,  cool  and  sweet,  morning  and  evening. 
There  is  a  resident  Commissioner,  who  has  nothing 

8  III 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

to  do ;  there  is  a  magistrate ;  there  are  one  or  two 
priests.  There  was  an  Anglican  missionary,  but  in 
such  a  cUmate  no  one  troubles  to  think  about  reli- 
gion, no  one  wants  a  change  ;  life  comes  unasked, 
it  lasts  awhile,  it  goes  away.  Where  does  it  go  ? 
Nobody  asks ;  nobody  cares.  On  the  verandah 
one  sits  with  feet  up  and  looks  out  into  the  forest 
beyond  the  bananas  and  the  palms.  Life  is.  What 
more  does  one  want  ?     Why  should  one  inquire  ? 

From  Seychelles,  a  run  of  some  1,500  miles, 
brings  us  to  Mauritius.  It  is  forty  years  since  I 
landed  at  Port  Louis.  I  believe  there  have  been 
great  changes.  In  1867  a  malarious  fever  declared 
itself,  which  has  been  endemic  ever  since.  Port 
Louis  was  a  gay  and  a  sociable  place  in  1861.  The 
wealthy  quarter  contained  large  and  handsome 
houses,  with  gardens  and  deep  verandahs.  There 
was  an  open  "  Place,"  where  the  band  played  in 
the  afternoon,  while  the  carriages  went  round  and 
round.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  dinner  giving  ; 
there  were  dances  in  the  cool  season  ;  there  was  an 
Opera  House,  maintained  by  subscription  ;  there 
were  two  regiments  in  the  place,  besides  artillery 
and  engineers.  What  was  more  important  to  me 
was  that  I  arrived  at  a  time  when  everybody  was 
young.  In  such  a  colony  the  merchants  and 
planters  in  the  good  old  times  got  rich  and  went 
home,  leaving  their  affairs  in  the  hands  of  younger 
men.  It  so  happened  that  the  houses  of  business 
were  at  this  time  nearly  all  in  the  hands  of  the 
younger  men,  consequently  they  were  Hvely.    More- 

114 


SIR      WALTER     B  ES  A  N  T 

over,  a  railway  was  about  to  be  constructed,  and  we 
received  a  large  addition  to  the  Englishmen  by  the 
arrival  of  the  engineers  who  were  to  construct  it. 

In  this  place,  then,  I  lived  for  six  years  and  a 
half.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  monotony,  but 
the  general  tone  was  one  of  great  cheerfulness. 
After  a  while  I  found  the  air  of  Port  Louis,  which 
is  surrounded  by  an  amphitheatre  of  hills  from 
1,200  to  2,500  feet  high,  confined  and  relaxing.  I 
therefore  joined  a  mess  of  bachelors  and  lived  for  a 
time  three  or  four  miles  out.  We  had  a  series  of 
changes,  for  the  men  in  the  mess  came  and  went. 
They  were  railway  engineers  ;  they  were  Civil  ser- 
vants ;  they  were  managers  and  accountants  of  the 
banks ;  they  were  partners  in  mercantile  houses. 
Finally,  and  for  the  last  two  years,  I  settled  in  a 
charming  little  bungalow  ten  miles  from  town, 
with  a  garden  growing  most  of  the  English  and 
all  the  tropical  vegetables,  a  mountain  stream  at 
the  back,  and  a  pool  for  bathing,  and  within 
reach  of  the  central  forests. 

As  regards  the  college,  I  would  say  as  little  as 
possible,  because  it  was  a  time  of  continual  fight 
between  the  rector  and  the  professors.  The  former 
is  now  dead,  but  probably  there  are  living  those 
who  would  be  hurt  by  certain  reminiscences.  Suf- 
fice it  to  say,  therefore,  that  he  was  a  very  clever 
and  able  man  in  the  wrong  place.  He  had  been 
in  the  Austrian  army,  and  retained  a  good  deal  of 
the  Austrian  ideas  as  to  duty  and  discipline,  which 
did  not  suit  either  an  English  pubhc  school,  such 

"5 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

as  the  Government,  which  kept  up  the  college  at  a 
heavy  loss,  desired,  or  a  French  lycee,  which  it  was, 
to  all  intents  and  purposes.     He  spoke  French  and 
English   fluently,  but  both  with   a  strong  German 
accent,  which  made   him  look    ridiculous  ;  he   was 
not  a  scholar  in  any  sense  of  the  word  ;  he  knew 
nothing    that    I     could    ever    discover  —  certainly 
neither  Latin,  nor  Greek,  nor  mathematics,  nor  his- 
tory.      His  only  notions  of  teaching  were  those  of 
an  army  crammer  ;   as  for  subjects  to  be  taught,  or 
text-books  to  be  used,  he  knew  absolutely  nothing. 
His   fitness  for   the  post  is   illustrated  by  the  fact 
that  he  wanted   English    history  to    be   studied  by 
young  men   of  nineteen  or  twenty  out  of  a  miser- 
able little  book  compiled  for  candidates  for  German 
cavalry    and    infantry !      I    do  not   know  who   was 
responsible  for  sending  the  poor  man  to  the  place ; 
but  imagine  the  wisdom  of  the  Colonial  Office,  and 
its  profound  knowledge  of  the  Colonies,  when  it 
selected  for  a  post  of  so  much  importance  an  Aus- 
trian for   a  colony  almost  entirely  French,  a  man 
who    had    thrown    over    his  religion    for  a  Roman 
Catholic  community,  and    an  ex-lieutenant  of   the 
Austrian  army  in  the  very  year  when  the   French 
were  driving  the  Austrians  out  of  Italy  !      At  the 
same  time  he  was  distinctly  a   clever  man,  full  of 
vast  projects,  not  one  of  which  could  he  carry  out ; 
and  incapable  of  treating  his  staff  save  as  a  sergeant 
treats  the  private  soldier. 

When  I  landed,  there  were  exactly  eleven  paying 
students  in  the  college ;  the  rector  had  detached  all 

ii6 


SIR      fVALTER     BESANT 

the  rest.  I  found  the  papers  screaming  against  him 
every  day,  I  found  the  whole  of  the  French  popu- 
lation in  open  hostility,  and  I  found  the  staff  of 
the  college  in  a  spirit  of  sullen  obstruction.  We 
got  along,  however,  somehow.  More  men  came  out 
from  England,  and,  despite  the  chief,  we  managed 
to  put  things  in  some  order.  The  pupils  began  to 
come  back  again ;  scholarships  of  J^200  a  year, 
tenable  for  four  years  in  England,  attracted  them, 
and  perhaps  the  new  staff  was  more  approved  than 
the  old.  But  the  rector  continued  to  quarrel  with 
everybody.  For  a  long  time  I  succeeded  in  getting 
things  carried  on  with  some  semblance  of  English 
order ;  but  amicable  relations  were  gradually  dropped, 
for  he  was  always  intensely  jealous  of  my  authority 
and  my  popularity.  Yet  he  could  not  manage  with- 
out me,  though  he  suspected,  quite  without  any 
foundation,  that  I  was  the  Instigator  of  many  of  the 
attacks  upon  him.  At  last  he  ventured  to  attack  me 
openly.  It  was  the  final  act,  and  it  was  suicidal. 
For  I  took  the  very  strong  step  of  addressing  a  letter 
to  the  Governor,  in  which  I  accused  my  chief  of  a 
great  many  things  which  there  Is  no  need  to  repeat. 
It  meant,  of  course,  that  these  things  had  to  be 
proved,  or  that  I  should  be  turned  out  of  the 
service. 

The  Governor  appointed  a  commission,  and  the 
rector  was  suspended  during  its  sitting.  It  lasted 
nearly  a  year ;  at  the  end  of  that  time  two  of  the 
three  commissioners  reported  that  the  charges  wanted 
clearer  proof,  and  the  third  commissioner  refused  to 

117 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

sign  this  report.  The  rector  returned,  but  his  rule 
was  really  over.  I,  who  had  been  acting  in  command 
during  the  sitting  of  the  commission,  now  claimed  a 
year's  furlough,  and  got  it.  Observe  that  there  was 
no  question  of  charging  me  with  insubordination 
for  attacking  my  chief;  the  facts  were  too  obviously 
proved,  as  everybody  could  read  for  himself  I 
came  home  for  a  year's  leave.  Six  months  later  the 
Legislative  Council  flatly  refused  supplies  so  long  as 
the  rector  remained  at  the  college.  He  was  there- 
fore sent  home,  and  had  influence  enough  to  get  a 
pension.  They  offered  the  rectorship  to  me ;  but  I 
had  had  enough  of  educational  work,  and  I  declined 
it.  At  the  end  of  my  furlough,  I  stepped  out  into 
the  world,  without  a  pension,  to  begin  all  over 
again. 

So  much  of  my  official  life.  The  continual 
struggle  worried  me  all  the  time,  but  perhaps  it 
kept  me  alive.  The  rector  had  at  least  the  power 
of  making  his  enemies  "sit  up."  In  a  tropical 
country  it  must  be  confessed  that  it  is  a  great  thing 
to  be  kept  on  the  alert. 

The  staff  of  the  college  was  a  mixed  lot ;  it  con- 
sisted nominally  of  four  or  five  "  professors  "  and  a 
dozen  "junior  masters."  Among  the  former  was  my 
friend  Frederick  Guthrie,  late  Professor  of  Physics 
in  the  Royal  School  of  Mines  and  founder  of  the 
Physical  Society  of  London,  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  and  a  man  of  infinite  good  qualities.  He 
was  my  most  Intimate  friend  from  our  first  meeting 
in    1861    to   his  death   in   1887.     It  is  difficult  to 

118 


SIR     WALTER     B  ES  A  N  T 

speak  of  him  in  terms  adequate.  He  was  a  humour- 
ist in  an  odd,  indescribable  way ;  he  did  strange 
things  gravely ;  he  was  a  delightful  donkey  in 
money  matters  ;  when  he  drew  his  salary  —  £^0  a 
month  —  he  prepaid  his  mess  expenses,  and  then 
stuffed  the  rest  into  his  pocket  and  gave  it  to  who- 
ever asked  for  it,  or  they  took  it.  Hence  he  was 
popular  with  the  broken  down  Englishmen  of  shady 
antecedents  who  hung  about  Port  Louis.  He  never 
had  any  money  ;  never  saved  any  ;  always  muddled 
it  away.  Like  many  such  men,  he  was  not  satisfied 
with  his  scientific  reputation  ;  he  wanted  to  be  a 
poet.  He  published  two  volumes  of  poetry,  both 
with  the  same  result.  He  was  also  clever  as  a 
modeller,  but  he  neglected  this  gift.  He  did  some 
good  work  in  the  colony  in  connection  with  the 
chemistry  of  the  sugar-cane  ;  he  maintained  a  steady 
attitude  of  resistance  to  the  rector,  who  could  do 
nothing  with  him ;  and  he  resigned  his  post  and 
came  away  from  Mauritius  at  the  same  time  as 
myself. 

Another  professor  was  a  learned  Frenchman  named 
Leon  Doyen.  He  had  amassed  an  immense  pile  of 
notes  for  a  history  of  the  colony,  but  he  died,  and 
I  know  not  what  became  of  them.  He  lent  me  once 
a  MS.  book  full  of  notes,  taken  by  himself  as  a 
student  in  Paris,  of  the  lectures  of  Ampere  on  the 
formation  and  history  of  the  French  language.  I 
copied  all  these  notes,  and  used  them  for  reading 
old  French,  in  which  language  he  lent  me  all  the 
books  he  had.     Some  years  later  a  book  was  pub- 

119 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

lished  in  England  which  contained  these  notes  almost 
verbatim.  I  have  often  wondered  whether  Doyen's 
MS.  book  furnished  the  material. 

The  masters  were  a  wonderful  scratch  lot. 
There  were  two  or  three  mulattos ;  one  or  two 
Frenchmen  down  on  their  luck ;  and  the  rest  were 
broken  Englishmen.  One  man  had  been  a  digger 
in  Victoria ;  two  had  been  in  the  army ;  another,  it 
was  discovered,  had  "  served  time  "  at  Cape  Town 
—  him  the  Colonial  Secretary  put  on  board  a  sugar 
ship  and  sent  back  to  his  native  country.  I  have 
often  wondered  who  this  man  was,  and  what  was 
his  history ;  he  had  good  manners  —  too  good  to 
be  genuine ;  he  was  a  fine  and  audacious  liar ;  he 
had  a  good  name.  Fifteen  years  later  I  saw  his 
death  in  the  paper ;  he  was  then  living  in  chambers 
in  Pall  Mall  East. 

The  secretary  of  the  college  was  a  French  Creole. 
His  grandfather,  who  was  still  living  in  1862  or 
1863,  an  old  man  nearly  ninety,  was  the  Marquis 
de  la  Roche  du  Rouzit,  and  had  formerly  been  page 
to  Marie  Antoinette.  I  once  found  him  out,  and 
talked  with  him,  but  he  was  too  old  —  his  memory 
was  gone.  He  lived  in  a  cottage,  beside  a  most 
lovely  bay  among  hills  and  woods ;  his  principal 
occupation  was  angling  for  ecrevisses  in  the  stream, 
and  fishing  in  the  bay  from  a  dug-out.  Yes  —  he 
remembered  Antoinette.  What  was  she  like  to  look 
at?  She  was  the  Queen;  they  cut  off  her  head; 
it  was  an  infamy.  Very  little  historical  information 
was  to  be  obtained  from  the  old  man ;  but  he  was 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

very  venerable  of  aspect,  and  looked,  what  he  had 
always  been,  a  gentleman  of  the  old  school. 

There  was  another  ancient  person  in  the 
colony.  He  was  the  serving  brother  of  the  Ma- 
sonic Lodges  —  the  outer  guard.  At  our  dinners 
after  lodge  I  used  to  get  the  old  man  to  sit  beside 
me  and  to  talk.  He  had  been  in  the  roar  of  La 
Vendee  ;  drummer-boy  to  La  Roche  Jaquelin.  He 
grew  animated  when  he  talked  of  the  battles  and 
his  escapes,  and  his  precious  drum.  His  daughters 
lived  in  the  Seychelles,  and  made  lovely  fans  from 
a  certain  palm  leaf,  I  think.  I  have  one  still ;  that 
is,  my  daughter  has  it.  I  suppose  that  the  good 
old  drummer  —  "Aha!  M'sieu — j'etais  le  tam- 
bour, de  La  Roche  Jaquelin  —  Oui  —  oui,  M'sieu', 
moi  qui  vous  le  dis  —  le  tambour" — is  dead  long 
ago. 

It  was  a  strange,  confused,  picturesque  kind  of 
life  that  one  led  there.  The  younger  partners  of 
the  mercantile  houses  lived  over  their  offices ;  one 
or  two  of  the  bank  officials  lived  in  the  banks ;  the 
officers  were  in  the  barracks,  always  ready  to  come 
out  and  dine  with  the  civilians ;  the  Anglican 
bishop  formed  a  centre  of  quiet  life  which  was,  to 
tell  the  truth,  useful  as  an  example ;  some  of  the 
Roman  Catholic  priests  were  very  good  fellows. 
Of  course  we  made  the  great  mistake  of  not  seeing 
more  of  the  French  Creoles,  many  of  whom  were 
highly  cultivated  and  pleasant  people ;  but  they  did 
not  like  the  English  rule,  and  they  made  no  secret 
of  their  dislike.     Nous  sommes  un  pays  conquis  was 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

the  echo  of  their  paper  about  once  a  week.     And 
there  were  the  planters. 

There  was  one  mercantile  house  where  I  was  a 
frequent  visitor.  Two  of  the  partners,  both  quite 
young  men,  ran  a  mess  over  their  offices  ;  there  I 
met  many  of  the  skippers  of  the  ships  which  brought 
out  cargo  to  this  firm.  Sea-captains  are  an  honest, 
frank  and  confiding  folk.  They  have  no  suspicion 
or  jealousies  of  their  brother  man,  they  have  no, 
private  axe  to  grind,  and  they  have  a  good  many 
things  to  talk  about.  It  was  pleasant  to  call  upon  one 
on  board  his  own  ship  and  have  him  all  to  oneself 
in  his  cabin.  One  of  them  was  a  poet,  he  read  me 
yards  of  his  own  poetry ;  another  confided  to  me 
the  miseries  he  endured  at  being  separated  from  his 
wife  ;  another  told  me  yarns  of  things  that  he  had 
witnessed  —  things  tacenda.  One,  I  remember, 
commanded  a  fine  four-masted  clipper  which  put  in 
for  repairs.  She  was  bound  for  Trinidad  with  a 
cargo  of  Chinese  coolies.  The  quarter  deck  was 
defended  by  four  small  cannonades  loaded  with 
grape ;  the  captain's  cabin  had  a  fine  stand  of  arms  ; 
every  sailor  carried  a  weapon  of  some  kind  ;  every 
officer  had  a  revolver  and  could  use  it  —  and,  mind, 
it  takes  a  great  deal  of  practice  to  use  a  revolver. 
They  admitted  up  the  hatchways  about  twenty 
coolies  at  a  time  and  only  for  a  few  minutes ;  then 
they  were  driven  below  and  another  twenty  came 
up  ;  and  so  on  all  day.  The  captain  told  me  that 
the  coolies  had  knives ;  that  there  were  women 
among    them,    for    whom    they    fought ;    that    the 

122 


SIR     JVALTER     BESANT 

women  were  sick  of  it,  and  had  mostly  got  through 
the  port-holes  and  so  drowned  themselves ;  and 
that  he  was  most  anxious  to  get  his  repairs  done 
and  be  off  again,  because  every  night  some  of  the 
coolies  got  out  and  tried  to  swim  ashore  —  which, 
he  said,  was  a  dead  loss  to  everybody,  including 
themselves,  because  the  sharks  got  them  all.  In 
the  little  saloon  of  this  ship  was  sitting  a  young 
Chinese  lady,  apparently  all  alone,  but  I  suppose 
she  had  someone  to  look  after  her  ;  she  was  beau- 
tifully dressed  in  thick  silk,  gleaming  with  gold 
thread. 

Another  man  told  me  how,  being  then  a  mate, 
cholera  broke  out  on  board  a  ship  bringing  coolies 
from  Calicut  to  Mauritius.  All  the  patients  either 
died  or  got  well  except  one  man.  Now,  if  no  one 
was  down  with  cholera,  the  captain  and  the  Indian 
apothecary,  who  served  for  doctor,  could  pretend 
that  there  was  no  sickness,  and  so  get  a  clean  bill 
of  health.  But  if  there  was  a  single  case  on  board, 
or  anything  to  show  that  there  had  been  an  out- 
break of  cholera,  they  would  have  to  go  to  Quaran- 
tine Island  and  there  stay  for  six  weeks  after  the 
last  case.  So,  to  make  everything  snug,  they 
chucked  the  last  patient  overboard.  After  all,  they 
did  not  get  a  clean  bill,  because  the  skipper  and  the 
apothecary  quarrelled,  and  the  latter  split.  Such 
were  the  tales  they  told. 

Among  my  friends  were  two  planters,  whose 
hospitality  to  me  was  unbounded.  The  first  was  a 
gentleman —  I  use  the  word  in  its  old  and  narrow 

123 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

sense  —  an  Oxford  man,  a  man  of  the  finest  man- 
ners, full  of  dignity  and  courtesy,  a  patriarch  in 
his  house.  He  used  to  invite  me  every  year  to 
spend  Christmas  with  the  party  he  got  together. 
This  party  consisted  of  himself  and  madame,  his 
three  daughters,  and  his  two  sons.  The  bachelors 
all  slept  in  a  pavilion  apart  from  the  main  house, 
where  we  had  mattresses  laid  on  the  floor.  Early 
in  the  morning,  about  half-past  five,  we  were 
awakened,  and  after  a  cup  of  tea  had  a  ramble  in  the 
woods  and  a  bathe  in  the  ravine.  After  breakfast, 
in  the  heat  of  the  day,  protected  by  big  pith  hel- 
mets, we  went  fishing  in  the  stream.  We  fished 
for  a  large  and  very  toothsome  river  fish  called  the 
gourami,  and  gourami  a  la  bechamel  is  one  of  the 
finest  preparations  of  fish  that  can  be  set  before 
the  most  accomplished  and  finished  gourmet.  And 
the  way  of  fishing  was  this.  The  river  ran  over  and 
under  boulders,  at  intervals  opening  into  a  small 
deep  pool.  We  had  a  net  and  we  all  went  into  the 
water,  swimming  and  pushing  the  net  before  us. 
When  we  got  to  the  end  of  the  pool  one  man  dived 
down  and  pulled  the  fish  out  of  the  meshes  of  the 
net.  We  got  back  in  the  afternoon,  and  some  of 
us  slept  off  the  fatigues  and  the  heat  of  the  morn- 
ing. When  the  sun  got  low  we  walked  about  the 
lawns  and  among  the  flowers.  At  seven  or  so  we 
sat  down  to  dinner,  and  at  ten  we  were  all  in  bed. 

The  other  planter  was  a  Scotchman.  I  am 
ashamed  when  I  think  of  the  way  I  abused  his 
hospitality;    but  it  was   his   own    fault,  he    always 

124 


SIR      IVALTER     BESJNT 

made  me  welcome  and  more  than  welcome.  His 
estate —  he  belonged  to  the  Clan  Macpherson,  and 
therefore  the  estate  was  called  Cluny — lay  on  the 
other  side  of  the  island,  not  the  Port  Louis  side. 
It  was  high  up  —  about  1,600  feet  above  the  sea 
level ;  it  was  always  cool  at  night,  and  was  carved 
out  of  the  silent  forest  which  lay  all  round  it  and 
shut  it  in.  The  place  was  most  secluded  and  re- 
tired. The  house  was  large  and  rambling,  all  on 
one  floor,  with  half-a-dozen  bedrooms,  a  dining- 
room,  a  salon,  and  a  broad  verandah.  In  the  gar- 
den there  were  peach-trees,  —  but  the  peaches  would 
never  ripen,  —  strawberries  kept  in  the  shade,  green 
peas,  celery,  bananas,  guavas  —  in  short,  all  kinds  of 
fruit,  vegetables,  and  flowers.  There  was  also  a  swim- 
ming-bath. In  the  morning  I  went  out  with  the 
planter  or  his  nephew.  Mackintosh,  on  his  daily  visit 
to  the  fields.  If  we  passed  beyond  the  estate  into 
the  forest  we  came  upon  ravines,  waterfalls,  hanging 
woods,  chattering  monkeys,  and  deer  in  herds. 
The  deer  knew  very  well  when  it  was  close  time  ; 
they  would  let  you  get  near  enough  to  see  them 
clearly,  then  with  a  sudden  alarm  they  would  bound 
away,  the  graceful  creatures.  Two  or  three  times 
I  went  shooting  the  deer ;  I  am  really  grateful  that 
I  never  got  a  shot  at  one,  although  I  should  cer- 
tainly never  have  hit  one  had  he  been  only  a  dozen 
yards  away,  because  in  all  kinds  of  sport  I  have  always 
been  the  worst  of  duffers.  How  can  one  be  a  good 
shot  with  eyes  which  are  not  only  short-sighted  but 
also  slow-sighted  ? 

125 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

There  was  a  range  of  hills,  on  one  side  of  which 
part  of  the  estate  lay.  Macpherson  planted  the  hill- 
side with  coffee ;  but  then  came  the  heavy  rains  and 
washed  his  plants  away,  and  there  was  an  end  of 
coffee  planting  on  the  island.  Macpherson  was  too 
enterprising,  however,  and  there  were  too  many 
hurricanes,  so  he  had  to  give  up  his  estate.  Mack- 
intosh, his  nephew,  was  put  into  another  estate  by 
one  of  the  banks,  and  did  well  for  a  time ;  then  his 
luck  failed  him,  and  he,  too,  had  to  resign.  He 
was  an  asthmatic,  and  died  at  the  age  of  five-and- 
thirty  or  so. 

The  most  remarkable  of  the  men  I  met  in  the 
island  was  my  old  friend  James  Longridge.  He  was 
the  constructor  of  the  railway ;  a  Cambridge  man, 
formerly  articled  to  George  Stephenson,  a  good 
mathematician,  and  a  man  full  of  inventions.  His 
principal  invention  was  the  wire  gun.  A  model  of 
this  gun  he  had  mounted  beside  a  quiet  bay,  where 
no  one  ever  went,  and  he  would  make  up  small 
parties  to  experiment  with  it,  firing  across  the  bay. 
He  offered  the  gun  to  the  English  Government ; 
they  kept  him  hanging  on  and  off  for  some  twenty 
years ;  at  last,  when  he  was  past  seventy  years  of 
age,  they  accepted  it  and  gave  him,  in  mockery, 
a  pension  of  ^^200  a  year  —  a  pension  at  the  age 
of  seventy  in  return  for  a  new  gun,  light,  easily 
handled,  and  capable  of  any  amount  of  development ! 
I  do  not  think  that  they  have  even  called  it  the 
Longridge  gun. 

I  have  mentioned  Quarantine  Island.      This  was 

126 


SIR     PFJLTER     BESANT 

an  island  about  thirty  miles  from  Mauritius,  in  the 
Indian  Ocean.  It  was  provided  with  a  lighthouse, 
and  a  medical  man  was  always  stationed  there.  If  a 
ship  put  in  with  fever  or  cholera  on  board,  she  had 
to  go  to  Quarantine  Island,  land  her  passengers,  and 
wait  there  for  the  disease  to  work  itself  out.  On 
one  occasion  a  coolie  ship  was  taken  there  with  a 
frightful  outbreak  of  cholera  on  board.  Then  one 
of  the  English  doctors  in  Mauritius  did  a  fine  thing, 
for  he  volunteered  to  go  and  help  the  quarantine 
officer.  Some  hundreds  died  during  this  outbreak, 
but  a  great  many  were  saved  by  the  self-devotion 
of  this   man. 

I  knew  the  quarantine  officer,  who  had  been  an 
army  doctor.  He  once  asked  me  to  spend  a  fort- 
night with  him.  I  accepted,  taking  the  risk  of  a 
cholera  ship  being  brought  there,  in  which  case  I 
should  have  had  to  stay  there  and  see  it  out.  None 
came,  however.  It  was  a  most  curious  experience. 
The  island  is  about  a  mile  and  a  half  in  circumfer- 
ence, surrounded  by  a  kind  of  natural  sea-wall ;  a 
coral  bank  runs  out  all  round  except  in  two  places. 
The  doctor  had  a  very  good  house  all  to  himself 
There  were  two  men  in  charge  of  the  lighthouse, 
there  were  a  few  Indian  servants,  and  no  one  else 
was  on  the  island  except  the  ghosts  of  the  dead 
who  lie  all  over  it.  At  sunset  the  Indians  hastened 
to  take  refuge  in  their  cottages ;  if  they  looked  out 
after  dark,  they  saw  white  things  moving  about ; 
there  was  no  kind  of  doubt  in  their  minds  that  they 
actually  did  see  white  things.     I  myself  looked  for 

127 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

them  but  saw  nothing.  How  my  friend  could  exist 
in  such  a  solitude,  with  the  unseen  presence  of  the 
white  things,  was  most  amazing  ;  it  was,  however,  a 
great  joy  to  him  if  he  could  catch  a  visitor.  It  was 
a  very  quiet  fortnight.  One  day  was  exactly  like 
another.  We  got  up  at  six,  before  sunrise ;  we 
walked  round  the  island  twice,  on  the  sea-wall ;  we 
then  bathed,  but  leisurely  ;  bathing  was  only  possible 
in  very  shallow  water  on  account  of"  things."  There 
was  an  astonishing  quantity  of  "  things  "  directly 
the  water  got  a  bit  deeper.  One  had  to  keep  on 
shoes  on  account  of  the  laff,  a  small  fish  which  lurks 
about  the  rocks  with  a  poisonous  backbone,  which 
he  sticks  into  the  bather's  foot  and  lames  him  for 
six  months.  There  was  also  the  tazar,  a  kind  of 
sea-pike,  which  delights  in  biting  a  large  piece  out 
of  a  man's  leg  if  he  can  get  at  him  ;  there  are  young 
sharks ;  there  are  also  the  great  sea  slugs  —  the 
biche  de  mer^  which  are  not  nice  to  step  upon. 

In  one  place,  where  the  coral  reef  stopped,  there 
was  a  curious  pillar  of  rock  about  forty  feet  above 
the  water  and  twenty  or  thirty  feet  in  diameter.  It 
stood  a  few  yards  from  the  shore,  and  was  covered 
with  innumerable  wild  birds.  My  friend  would 
never  shoot  them ;  we  would  sit  down  by  the  shore 
and  watch  this  multitude  flying,  screaming,  fishing, 
fighting  all  day  long.  I  know  nothing  about  birds 
and  have  not  the  least  idea  of  the  names  of  these 
specimens ;  but  of  their  numbers  I  have  a  lively 
recollection.  In  the  transparent  water  between  the 
shore  and  the  rock  there  were  water-snakes.    I  have 

128 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

never  seen  anything  more  beautiful  than  the  motions 
of  these  creatures,  darting  about  in  all  directions  ; 
they  were  of  many  colours  and  mostly,  as  it  seems 
to  my  memory,  about  three  feet  long. 

After  getting  through  our  exercise  and  our  bathing 
we  went  through  a  form  of  dressing  without  putting 
on  too  much,  and  were  ready  for  breakfast.  There 
was  always  fish  caught  that  morning,  always  curried 
chicken  with  claret,  always  coffee  afterwards.  Those 
days  —  alas!  How  good  it  was  to  be  six-and- 
twenty  !  and  what  a  perpetual  feast  was  always  pre- 
sent at  breakfast  and  dinner  ! 

Then  came  the  cigar — it  was  before  the  days  of 
the  cigarette.  Then  a  little  game  of  ecarte  for  six- 
pences ;  then  a  little  reading ;  then  in  the  heat  of 
the  day  a  siesta ;  at  five  o'clock  we  had  tea ;  then, 
the  heat  of  the  day  over,  we  once  more  marched 
round  this  island,  looked  at  the  birds  and  the  snakes, 
bathed  on  the  coral  reef  and  at  sunset  sat  down  to 
dinner,  which  was  just  hke  breakfast  —  but  perhaps 
more  so.  After  dinner  my  host  would  touch  the 
guitar,  which  he  did  very  pleasantly ;  there  would 
be  another  game  of  ecarte,  a  little  more  tobacco,  a 
brandy  and  soda,  and  so  to  the  friendly  shelter  of 
the  mosquito  curtains.  The  lonely  life  among  the 
dead  men  and  their  ghosts  ;  the  sea  outside  —  a  sea 
without  a  boat  or  a  ship  or  a  sail  ever  within  sight, 
a  sea  filled  with  creatures  ;  the  silence  broken  only  by 
the  screaming  of  the  sea-birds  and  the  lapping  of 
the  waves,  made  up  a  strange  experience,  one  to  be 
remembered. 

9  129 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

To  return  to  the  college  staff;  there  was  on  it  a 
man  of  curious  antecedents  and  somewhat  singular 
personality.  To  begin  with,  he  never  concerned 
himself  in  the  least  about  money.  He  was  a  Scot 
of  Aberdeen  University ;  a  scholar  in  his  own  way, 
which  was  not  the  way  of  Cambridge ;  a  man  of 
large  reading  in  one  Book.  He  was  at  this  time  — 
the  sixties  —  about  forty  years  of  age.  He  never 
told  me  of  his  beginnings,  which  were,  however,  as 
I  gathered  from  his  knowledge  of  the  shifts  by 
which  the  poorer  undergraduates  of  Aberdeen  con- 
trived to  live,  of  a  humble  character.  His  first 
important  post  was  that  of  missionary  for  some 
Scotch  society  to  Constantinople,  or  Asia  Minor — 
somewhere  among  the  Turks.  This  post  he  held 
for  a  few  years,  during  which  he  travelled  about 
among  the  islands  and  had  a  very  good  time.  He 
made  no  converts,  but  he  argued  from  the  Book 
with  any  who  would  listen  to  him,  either  among 
Greeks  or  Mohammedans.  Then  two  things  hap- 
pened unto  him  :  first,  his  conscience  smote  him, 
for  drawing  pay  and  writing  reports  about  promising 
cases,  days  of  enlargement,  and  signs  of  encourage- 
ment ;  second,  he  found  that  he  no  longer  believed 
in  the  letter  of  his  creed  or  in  the  letter  of  the 
Book.  Therefore  he  resigned  his  post  and  set  forth 
on  his  travels  about  the  world  armed  with  his  Book 
and  nothing  else.  A  Scotchman  finds  friends  in 
every  colony.  This  man  had  no  fear ;  he  cast  him- 
self upon  a  place,  stayed  there  till  he  was  tired,  and 
then  went  on  somewhere  else.     He  always  had  the 

130 


SIR      WALTER      B  E  S  A  N  T 

Book  in  his  hand  ;  he  was  principally  engaged,  as 
he  himself  said,  "  among  the  minor  prophets." 
I  wish  I  could  remember  all  the  things  he  told  me, 
but  I  know  that  according  to  his  own  account  he 
was  always  making  discoveries  to  the  prejudice  of 
Verbal  Inspiration.  "  Obsairve,"  he  said  to  me 
once,  "Micah"  —  or  was  it  Habakkuk?  —  "begins 
by  saying  '  The  Lord  spoke  to  me  saying '  .  .  . 
Now  look  here;  later  on  he  says,  'And  then  I 
knew  that  it  was  the  Lord  who  spake  to  me.'  So 
that  the  first  words  were  only  a  formula."  He  grew 
tired  of  the  place  and  shifted  on.  When  I  last 
heard  of  him  he  was  running  a  school  in  some  town 
near  Melbourne.  If  he  is  still  living,  he  must  be 
eighty  years  of  age.  Heaven  knows  what  discover- 
ies he  has  made  among  the  minor  prophets. 

Another  member  of  the  staff  was  a  tall,  thin  Ger- 
man. He  wore  spectacles,  he  was  horribly  shy  and 
nervous,  spoke  to  no  one,  and  lived  all  by  himself 
in  a  little  pavilion  which  was  bedroom  and  keeping- 
room  in  one,  for  an  Indian  cook  and  all  his  goods. 
It  was  no  use  making  overtures  to  him,  for  there 
was  no  response.  He  died  of  fever  in  1867,  and 
then  I  learned  his  history.  He  too  had  been  a 
missionary  ;  his  field  had  been  India  ;  and  like  the 
Scotchman,  he  had  found  it  impossible  to  pretend 
that  he  believed  his  creed  ;  he  too  had  given  it  up. 
He  was  in  English  holy  orders,  and  his  great  dread 
was  that  the  bishop  would  find  him  out  and  learn 
his  history. 

I  wonder  how  many  such  missionaries  there  are. 
131 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

Once  in  Berlin  I  met  a  man  of  great  learning  and 
intelligence  who  gave  me  a  similar  experience.  He 
had  been  in  China  for  an  American  missionary 
society  of  the  strictest  creed.  He  was  sent  into  the 
interior,  where  he  mastered  Chinese  literature  and 
grew  to  understand  —  as  I  think  —  the  Chinese 
character.  He  told  strange  tales  of  tribes  and 
peoples  —  China  is  a  country  of  which  we  know 
nothing.  Among  others  he  found  a  tribe  of  Jews 
who  had  preserved  nothing,  not  even  the  sacred 
books  of  their  religion,  except  one  kosher  rite  with 
reference  to  food.  He  made  no  converts,  and  by 
his  narrow  creed  all  these  millions  were  doomed  to 
everlasting  torments.  Heavens  !  what  a  creed  ! 
Everlasting  torment  for  these  ignorant  folk,  these 
women,  these  children  !  Are  we  monsters  of  cruelty 
that  we  should  believe  such  things  ?  Living  by 
himself  among  them,  he  gradually  cast  away  the 
dreadful  horrors  of  his  sect  and  ceased  to  believe  in 
the  creed  which  he  was  paid  to  preach.  So  he  too 
came  out  of  it. 

For  a  young  man  nowadays  to  reach  the  age  of 
five-and-twenty  or  so,  and  to  pass  through  the 
university,  without  coming  across  that  common 
variety  of  man,  the  agnostic,  would  be  impossible. 
Agnostics  were  much  rarer  forty  or  more  years  ago, 
but  I  made  the  acquaintance  of  two  or  three.  One 
of  them  was  an  agnostic  pure  and  simple,  who 
thought  it  was  his  duty  to  learn  such  of  the  secrets 
of  Nature  as  he  could,  and  not  to  trouble  himself 
about  speculations  as  to  the  secrets  of  life,  either 

132 


SIR      tr  A  LT  ER     B  ES  A  N  T 

before  the  cradle  or  after  the  grave  —  this  was  my 
friend    Guthrie.     Another    was    a    more  aggressive 

infidel,  D.  H ,  a  Prussian,  a  tall,  handsome  young 

man,  then  about  thirty  years  of  age.  He  had  been 
in  the  Russian  Army  Medical  Service,  and  was  in 
Sebastopol  during  the  siege.  I  wish  I  had  written 
down  all  the  things  he  told  me  about  that  siege, 
and  the  infernal  rain  of  shells  that  fell  upon  the 
place  night  and  day,  with  the  hospitals  crammed, 
not  only  with  the  wounded,  but  with  men  by  hun- 
dreds stricken  with  cholera.  However,  when  one 
is  young  one  listens  and  forgets  to  take  note  of 
things.  He  was,  as  I  have  said,  an  aggressive  in- 
fidel. Guthrie  only  said  that  it  was  not  his  business 
to  inquire  into  things  called  spiritual,  and  he  went  so 
far  as  to  deny  the  power  of  the  Padre  to  learn  more 

about  these  things  than  anyone  else.      D.   H 

went  much  farther  ;  he  denied  the  whole  of  reli- 
gion, the  miraculous  history,  the  inspiration,  the 
doctrine,  everything.  He  denied  without  bitterness, 
without  contempt,  without  pity,  without  hatred ; 
he  simply  denied  and  went  his  own  way.  He  was 
as  scientific  a  physician  as  one  would  find  in  the 
sixties.  About  the  year  1866  he  went  away,  and 
I  learned  presently  that  he  had  gone  to  Buenos 
Ayres,  and  that  he  had  died  of  yellow  fever,  work- 
ing in  the  hospitals  there. 

There  was  yet  another  kindly  unbeliever  of  my 
acquaintance  ;  he  was  a  medical  man  and  a  botanist, 
and  in  both  capacities  he  had  accompanied  a  certain 
High  Church  mission  to  Central  Africa,  being  one 

^Z5 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

of  the  few  survivors  of  an  unlucky  enterprise.  He 
brought  away  with  him  a  fever  which  never  left  him, 
and  caused  insomnia  ;  he  would  sometimes  lie  sleep- 
less for  a  week  together,  suffering  prolonged  tor- 
tures. In  the  intervals  he  sat  up  and  poured  out 
stories  about  his  friends  the  missionaries ;  he  loved 
them,  and  he  laughed  at  them.  He  went  with 
Bishop  Ryan  to  Madagascar,  and  brought  back 
more  stories,  which  I  hope  the  good  bishop  never 
heard.  He  was  sent  on  a  mission  to  look  into  the 
sugar-cane  culture  in  various  places,  and  died  at 
Rangoon.  I  have  never  met  his  equal  for  humour; 
he  bubbled  over  with  humour  ;  everything  had  its 
humorous  side,  and  in  his  speech,  or  in  his  heart, 
there  was  never  the  slightest  bitterness,  or  gall,  or 
envy,  or  malice. 

Religion  sat  very  lightly  upon  the  good  folks  of 
the  colony.  The  French  and  the  mulattos  went  to 
church  —  they  had  a  cathedral  and  a  good  many 
churches.  The  English  had  their  cathedral,  but 
they  made  very  little  use  of  it ;  they  had  also  two 
or  three  little  churches  in  the  country,  but  they 
were  not  much  frequented.  The  Scotch,  for  their 
part,  waking  one  day  to  the  understanding  that 
they  had  no  church,  built  one,  and  imported  a 
clergyman.  On  the  first  day  of  service  they  all  at- 
tended, on  the  following  Sunday  there  was  no  one  ; 
and  there  has  never  been  anyone  since,  except  a  few 
skippers  and  people  of  the  port.  There  were  also 
half-a-dozen  missionaries.  One  of  them  founded  a 
home  for  leprous  children.     Another  rode  about  on 

134 


SIR      fFJLTER     BESANT 

a  pony  among  the  plantations,  and  said  a  word  in 
season  before  dinner  in  the  camps  of  the  coolies  — 
it  was  pleasant  to  read  his  report  of  "journeyings," 
and  encouraging  cases,  and  inquiries.  The  good 
man  was  not  in  the  least  a  humbug  ;  he  only  con- 
tinued a  perfunctory  task,  calling  himself  the  sower 
of  seed,  long  after  the  early  enthusiasm  of  the  out- 
set had  been  chilled  and  destroyed.  Another  mis- 
sionary of  whom  I  have  the  liveliest  recollection  did 
gather  round  him  a  school  of  children,  and  a  whole 
village,  chiefly  of  negroes.  He  was  a  Swiss  by 
birth,  a  cheery,  hearty  old  man,  very  deaf,  who 
talked  in  the  simplest  fashion  to  his  flock.  "  Mes 
enfans,"  he  would  say,  "  qu'y  en  a  qui  fit  cree  le 
monde  ?  Le  Pere  Eternel  —  Qu'y  en  a  qui  fit 
sauve  le  monde  ?  Son  fils,  mes  enfans  —  son  fils. 
Et  comment  ce  qui  fait  ?  C'est  moi  qui  va  vous  le 
dire,"  and  so  on,  in  Creole  patois,  while  the  shiny- 
faced  blacks  sat  round  him  with  open  mouths. 
They  never  grew  tired  of  hearing  the  old  story,  nor 
he  of  telling  it.  He  made  the  Roman  Catholics 
extremely  jealous  of  his  influence,  especially  over 
the  children.  Once  one  of  their  priests  tried  to 
draw  the  children  away  from  his  school.  The 
pastor  —  he  was  a  veritable  pastor  —  sent  him  word 
that  he  would  make  a  big  gunny-bag  and  put  him 
in  it  if  he  interfered.  The  Roman  Catholic  bishop, 
therefore,  went  to  the  Governor  and  laid  a  formal 
complaint  and  protest.     "Did  he  really,"  asked  the 

Governor,  "  threaten    to    put    Father  X in    a 

gunny-bag?"     "He    did,    indeed."     "Then,    my 

135 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

Lord  Bishop,"  said  the  Governor,  "  I  assure  you 
that  he  is  a  man  of  his  word ;  and  he  7/  do  it ;  he  will 
indeed."  Once  I  met  him  on  the  road,  and  inquired 
after  his  wife,  who  had  been  ill.  I  have  said  he  was 
very  deaf.  He  nodded  his  head  several  times,  and 
shook  me  warmly  by  the  hand.  "  My  dear  sir," 
he  said,  "  I  am  always  glad  of  a  little  conversa- 
tion with  you.  That  is  precisely  the  view  concern- 
ing Moses  and  geology  which  I  have  always  taken." 
I  must  get  on  with  my  gallery  of  colonials. 
Among  them  were  the  late  Sir  Edward  Newton, 
afterwards  Colonial  Secretary  of  Jamaica ;  Sir  Wil- 
liam Marsh,  Colonial  Secretary  of  Hong  Kong, 
Auditor-General  of  Cyprus,  and  Acting  Governor 
of  Hong  Kong ;  Sir  John  Douglas,  afterwards 
Lieutenant-Governor  of  Ceylon.  The  Governors 
in  my  time  were  Sir  William  Stevenson,  who  died 
there,  and  Sir  Henry  Barkly,  who  lived  to  a  great 
age  and  died  only  the  other  day.  Dr.  Ryan  was 
the  Anglican  Bishop,  a  good  scholar,  a  man  of  many 
gifts,  but  somewhat  narrow  in  his  views.  The 
Chief  Justice  was  a  Scotchman  named  Shand ;  I 
believe  that  he  was  a  good  lawyer  and  a  good  judge. 
He  was  a  cousin  of  one  of  the  Scottish  judges  — 
Lord  Shand.  The  Puisne  judges  were  for  the  most 
part,  if  I  remember  aright,  Creoles  of  the  island. 
The  master  of  the  Supreme  Court  was  a  man  who 
had  the  reputation  of  a  good  lawyer,  and  was  also  a 
gourmet.  It  was  a  great  thing  to  dine  with  him, 
because  he  used  to  stay  at  home  all  day  in  anxious 
consultation  with   the  cook ;  it  was  informing  to  sit 

136 


SIR      TV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

next  to  him  at  a  public  dinner,  because  he  would 
discourse  learnedly  on  the  great  art  and  science  of 
dining.  He  once  told  me  a  little  story  about  his 
own  skill.  "  I  was  with  a  fishing-party,"  he  said, 
"  in  Scotland,  being  then  a  young  man.  I  met 
with  a  slight  accident  and  sprained  my  ankle.  *  Go 
without  me,'  I  told  my  friends.  '  This  evening 
you  shall  have  a  surprise.'  "  He  stopped  with  a 
sigh.  "  Twenty  years  after,"  he  continued,  "  I  was 
in  Westminster    Hall    when    a    man    accosted  me. 

*  Mr. ,'  he  said.     '  That,  sir,'  I  told  him, '  is  my 

name,  but  for  the  moment  I  do  not  recollect  yours.' 

*  Never  mind  the  name,'  he  said.  ^  Eh !  man  ! 
That  surprise  !     That  saumon  soup  ! '  " 

We  had  among  us  a  great  light  in  meteorology  — 
the  place  was  a  most  important  meteorological  station 
—  named  Charles  Meldrum  ;  he  was  made  a  Fellow 
of  the  Royal  Society,  to  his  infinite  gratification. 
There  was  a  merchant,  also,  whom  I  remember. 
He  was  already  an  old  man  in  the  sixties.  His 
distinctive  point  was  that  he  was  a  friend  of 
Carlyle,  and  I  heard  the  other  day  that  he  was 
dead  at  a  very  great  age,  having  gone  to  Eccle- 
fechan  to  spend  his  last  days.  There  was  a  charm- 
ing and  delightful  bank  manager  named  Anderson, 
who  in  London  as  a  young  man  had  been  one  of 
an  interesting  circle  of  Bohemians  —  the  later  Bohe- 
mians. The  circle  is  described  in  a  novel  or  a 
series  of  chapters,  called  Friends  of  Bohemia,  by  one 
of  them,  Edward  M.  Whitty.  Anderson  was  a 
man    of   great    culture ;    an    early    worshipper    of 

137 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

Browning,  Holman  Hunt,  and  Burne  Jones.  He 
himself  once  produced  a  small  volume  of  Browning- 
esque  verse,  but  somehow  did  not  like  to  be  re- 
minded of  it.  He  came  home  and  was  made  a 
Director  of  the  Oriental  Bank.  He  was  also  a 
member  of  the  Savile  Club,  where  I  met  him 
later. 

One  more  figure,  this  time  one  better  known  to 
fame.  Among  the  younger  merchants  was  a  man 
named  Dykes  Campbell.  He  was  one  of  those  who 
have  literary  proclivities  without  any  particular  gifts 
of  imagination  or  expression.  Most  men  of  this 
kind  try  the  impossible  and  produce  bad  verse  and 
bad  fiction.  Campbell  did  nothing  of  the  kind  ;  he 
kept  up  his  reading,  he  went  on  with  his  work,  and 
at  the  age  of  forty  or  so  he  found  he  could  retire 
with  a  competence.  Then  he  came  to  England 
and  devoted  himself  for  ten  years  to  the  investiga- 
tion of  everything  relating  to  Coleridge ;  and  he 
ended  by  producing  the  best  life  of  Coleridge  that 
we  have,  and  the  best,  I  suppose,  that  we  shall  ever 
have.  So  this  simple  colonial  merchant  has  made 
an  enduring  mark  in  the  literature  of  the  century. 
It  is  really  a  remarkable  story.  Campbell  did 
nothing  else  worth  mentioning.  He  wrote  a  little 
towards  the  end  of  his  life  for  the  Athenaum,  but  he 
formed  no  other  project  of  serious  work,  and  he 
died   at  the   age   of  fifty-five. 

On  the  intellectual  side  of  the  colony  one  need 
not  linger  long ;  nor  need  we  press  the  matter  too 
hardly.     For  without  stimulus,  without  papers  and 

138 


,    SIR      fFJLTER      BESJNT 

journals,  without  new  books,  and  without  learned 
bodies,  how  can  there  be  any  intellectual  life  ? 
The  newspapers  of  the  colony  were  contemptible  ; 
there  was  a  so-called  "  Royal  Society,"  which  had 
a  museum  and  a  curator,  but  there  was  no  life  in 
it ;  there  was  a  Meteorological  Society,  which  had 
a  committee,  and  a  secretary,  Meldrum,  but  the 
secretary  alone  did  all  the  work,  which  was,  as  I 
have  said,  of  great  importance.  There  were  no 
lectures,  partly  because  no  one  would  go  out  in  the 
evening  except  to  dinner,  while  no  one  would  go  to 
a  lecture  before  dinner,  and  partly  because  every- 
body knew  everybody  else,  and  could  get  any  in- 
formation that  he  might  want  without  the  trouble 
of  going  to  a  lecture.  A  few  private  persons  had 
small  collections  of  books,  but  there  was  not  much 
reading.  There  was  a  circulating  library,  which  was 
very  poorly  supported ;  there  was  a  subscription 
library,  which  fell  to  pieces,  and  what  became  of 
the  books  I  could  never  learn.  The  college  had  a 
library  containing  a  very  fine  collection  of  historical 
works. 

For  my  own  part,  as  a  full  quarter  of  the  year 
was  vacation,  I  naturally  fell  back  upon  work.  In 
fact  I  did  a  great  deal  of  work  of  a  desultory  kind. 
I  filled  up  many  important  gaps.  The  most  impor- 
tant part  of  my  reading  was  in  French.  My  friend 
Leon  Doyen  introduced  me  to  the  study  of  old 
French,  and  gave  me  the  key  ;  he  also  lent  me  cer- 
tain books  of  old  French.  Then  I  found  a  man 
who  had  a  complete  edition  of  Balzac,  and  another 

139 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

who  had  a  complete  edition  of  Georges  Sand.  I 
worked  through  all  these  books.  And  I  found 
another  man  with  a  collection  of  old  numbers  of  the 
Revue  des  Deux  Mondes.  I  do  not  think  that  any 
English  magazine  contains  so  many  articles  of  en- 
during interest  as  this  review.  And  I  was  writing 
all  the  time.  I  wrote  essays  for  the  most  part, 
which  have  long  since  been  torn  up.  In  truth  I 
was  not  in  the  least  precocious,  and  I  spent  these 
years  in  getting  control  over  my  pen,  which  at  first 
ran  along  of  its  own  accord,  discursive,  rambling, 
and  losing  its  original  purpose.  No  one  would 
believe  the  trouble  I  had  in  making  the  pen  a  ser- 
vant instead  of  a  master ;  in  other  words,  in  forcing 
the  brain  to  concentration.  I  had  by  this  time  quite 
abandoned  higher  mathematics,  which  from  this 
point  of  view  was  a  loss,  because  there  is  nothing 
that  fixes  and  concentrates  the  attention  more  than 
mathematics.  I  found,  however,  that  the  writing 
of  verse  was  useful  in  the  same  direction,  and  I 
wrote  a  good  deal  of  verse,  none  of  which  have  I 
ever  ventured  to  publish. 

I  also  wrote  a  novel.  It  was  a  long  novel,  in- 
tended for  the  then  orthodox  three  volumes.  I 
wrote  it  with  great  enjoyment,  and  I  persuaded 
myself  that  it  was  good.  Finally  I  sent  it  to  Eng- 
land and  had  it  submitted  to  a  publisher.  His 
verdict  was  in  plain  language  —  *'  Won't  do ;  but 
has  promise."  When  I  got  home  I  received  back 
the  MS.,  and  I  agreed  with  the  verdict ;  it  was  a 
happy  thing  for  me  that  the  MS.  was  not  published. 

140 


SIR     JV  A  LT  E  R     B  E  S  A  N  T 

The  papers  lay  in  my  chambers  for  a  long  time 
afterwards  in  a  corner  covered  with  dust.  They  got 
upon  my  nerves.  I  used  to  see  a  goblin  sitting  on 
the  pile ;  an  amorphous  goblin,  with  tearful  eyes, 
big  head,  shapeless  body,  long  arms  and  short  legs. 
He  would  wag  his  head  mournfully.  "  Don't  make 
another  like  me,"  he  said.  "  Not  hke  me.  I 
couldn't  bear  to  meet  another  like  me."  At  last 
I  plucked  up  courage  and  burned  the  whole  pile. 
Then  my  goblin  vanished  and  I  saw  him  no  more.  I 
expected  him  some  time  after,  if  only  to  thank  me 
for  not  making  another  like  him.  But  he  came 
not,  and  I  have  often  wondered  whither  that  gobHn 
went  for  rest  and  consolation. 

It  was,  I  think,  in  1864  that  I  became  aware  of 
an  increased  tendency  to  a  form  of  melancholia 
which  made  me  uneasy  at  first.  Gradually  the 
symptom  became  a  burden  to  me.  I  suppose  it 
was  caused  partly  by  over-work;  partly  by  worry 
on  account  of  my  exasperating  chief;  and  partly  by 
the  monotony  of  a  climate  which  was  sometimes 
much  too  hot,  and  sometimes  a  little  too  wet,  but 
never  cold.  Some  men  are  so  constituted  that  they 
enjoy  this  eternal  summer ;  some  cannot  stand  it. 
I  was  one  of  the  latter  class.  As  the  thing  grew 
worse,  I  took  advice  of  my  German  friend.  He 
advised  an  immediate  change  of  scenery,  if  not  of 
climate.  Accordingly  I  took  the  first  opportunity 
of  a  vacation  to  visit  the  Island  of  Reunion,  for- 
merly called  Bourbon.  I  recorded  my  impressions 
of  the  place  in  Once  a  Week    (see    Once  a    Week^ 

141 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

October  i6th  and  October  23rd,  1869),  a  circum- 
stance to  which  I  shall  refer  again. 

My  residence  in  Mauritius  of  six  years  was  full 
of  experiences.  In  1862  we  had  an  attack  of  chol- 
era, not,  happily,  very  severe  nor  of  long  duration. 
It  carried  off,  however,  a  good  many  whites.  It 
was  the  second  attack  that  had  visited  the  island, 
that  of  1854,  its  predecessor,  being  far  more  virulent 
and  lasting  much  longer.  There  was  a  hurricane 
one  year,  which  wasted  the  whole  island  and  de- 
stroyed an  immense  quantity  of  canes  —  but  how 
sweet  and  pure  was  the  air  of  the  place  after  it ! 
On  another  occasion  a  waterspout  burst  in  the  hills 
round  the  town,  and  floods  of  water  five  or  six  feet 
deep  rushed  through  the  streets,  tearing  up  the  cot- 
tages of  wattle-and-daub,  washing  the  town,  and 
drowning  more  people  than  were  ever  counted. 

The  last  experience  was  that  of  a  city  in  a  plague. 
In  1866-67  broke  out  for  the  first  time  the 
Mauritius  fever.  Up  to  that  time  the  place  was 
considered  as  healthy  as  any  island  or  country  in 
the  temperate  zone.  There  were  no  endemic  dis- 
orders,  and   everybody   lived   to  a  green   old   age. 

Now  my  friend  D.  H ,  when  he  went  away  in 

1865,  gave  utterance  to  a  medical  prophecy.  He 
said,  "  You  have  250,000  coolies  on  this  little 
island,  without  counting  negroes,  Malagasy  men, 
Malays,  and  Chinese.  None  of  them  will  obey 
any  sanitary  rules  ;  the  soil  of  the  town,  and  even 
that  of  the  cane-fields,  is  saturated.  Sooner  or  later, 
there  will  be  a  great  outbreak  of  fever  or  plague." 

142 


SIR      JVALTER     BESANT 

This  prophecy  was  fulfilled  to  the  letter.  The 
fever  appeared;  it  ran  through  the  Indian  camps 
and  the  negro  villages  with  frightful  rapidity ;  it 
attacked  white  as  well  as  coloured  people  in  certain 
districts,  especially  low-lying  or  swampy  places.  It 
was  not  sporadic ;  it  caught  whole  families  and 
carried  them  off.  For  instance,  the  railway  people 
wanted  a  party  of  coolies  to  be  taken  from  one 
place  to  another.  The  sirdar  who  was  entrusted 
with  the  business  brought  them,  with  their  wives 
and  children,  to  the  town  and  lodged  them  in  an 
old  room  formerly  used  for  slaves.  This  done,  he 
was  taken  with  the  fever  and  died.  Then  all  the 
coolies  were  taken  with  it ;  no  one  knew  they  were 
in  Port  Louis,  no  doctor  went  near  them,  and  they 
all  died  where  they  lay.  All  the  quinine  in  the 
place  was  exhausted;  that  which  had  been  ordered 
from  Europe  was  by  mistake  sent  out  round  the 
Cape  instead  of  by  the  overland  route ;  what  there 
was  sold  for  ;^3o,  and  more,  an  ounce. 

The  number  of  deaths  rose  to  three  hundred  a 
day  for  the  whole  island ;  in  Port  Louis  alone  to 
one  hundred  and  more;  the  shops  were  closed;  the 
streets  were  silent;  the  funerals  went  on  all  day 
long  in  the  Roman  Catholic  churches,  and  in  their 
cemetery  the  priests  stood  over  o^^n  fosses  communes^ 
saying  the  last  prayers  for  the  dead  without  inter- 
mission as  the  coffins  were  brought  in  and  laid  side 
by  side. 

My  residence  was  then  about  ten  miles  from 
town,  on  a  plateau  1,200  feet  above  the  level  of  the 

143 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

sea.  We  had  some  fever,  but  not  much ;  our 
servants'  camp  contained  a  few  patients,  and  we 
doctored  them  ourselves  with  good  results.  It  was 
a  strange  experience.  There  were  dreadful  stories 
of  suffering.  The  Chinese  who  had  escaped  the 
cholera  were  laid  low  with  the  fever,  and  of  the 
mulattos  no  one  knew  who  had  died  or  how  many. 
When  the  canes  were  cut,  dead  bodies  were  found 
among  them  of  poor  wretches  who  had  crept  in  to 
die  at  peace  under  these  waving  plumes  of  grey. 
When  all  was  over  it  was  found  that  the  savings 
bank  had  ^30,000  lying  in  its  hands  which  were 
never  claimed ;  the  investors  with  all  their  families 
had  been  wiped  out.  The  worst  was  just  over 
when  I  went  away  in  June  1867.  But  fever  still 
lingered,  and  is  now  endemic  as  one  of  the  condi- 
tions of  life  in  the  colony  as  much  as  it  is  in  Sierra 
Leone  and  on  the  West  Coast  of  Africa.-^ 

1  A  Fever  Inquiry  Commission  was  appointed  by  Sir  Henry  Barkly 
in  1867,  and  a  sub-committee  reported  to  this  commission  in  1868 
upon  the  epidemic.  The  sub-committee  decided  that  the  epidemic 
was  one  of  malarious  fever,  showing  itself  under  various  forms,  and 
pointed  out  that  on  December  31st,  1866,  when  the  epidemic  was 
approaching,  the  number  of  immigrants  from  India  alone  had  reached 
the  enormous  figure  of  246,049.  The  report  confirms  Sir  Walter 
Besant's  recollections.  Estimating  the  population  of  Port  Louis  at 
80,000  in  1867,  it  shows  that  the  death-rate  during  the  year  amounted 
to  274  per  thousand.  The  greatest  mortality  in  one  day,  April  27th, 
was  234.  It  was  established  that  many  hundreds  of  lives  were  lost 
during  the  epidemic  through  the  want  of  cleanliness  and  overcrowding 
in  the  Indian  and  creole  camps. 


144 


SIR      fFJLTER     B  ES  A  NT 


Chapter  VIII 

ENGLAND  AGAIN  :  THE  PALESTINE  EXPLORATION 

FUND 

WITH  a  year's  furlough  on  half-pay,  I 
bade  farewell  to  my  friends.  I  was  in  no 
hurry  to  get  home,  and  therefore  took  a 
passage  by  the  Cape  steamer.  We  were  connected 
with  Cape  Town  by  a  service  of  two  or  three  little 
steamers.  One  of  them  had  just  gone  down  in  a 
storm  while  lying  in  harbour  at  the  Cape,  a  fact 
which,  had  I  known  it,  would  probably  have  sent 
me  home  by  the  shorter  and  safer  route.  But  it 
was  a  chance  which  might  never  offer  itself  again  of 
seeing  the  Cape. 

So  we  started  in  our  cockle-shell.  There  was  no 
place  for  stores  of  dead  stock,  no  ice-rooms  or  any- 
thing of  that  sort ;  we  had  our  sheep  and  our 
poultry  stowed  away  in  pens  somewhere  in  the 
bows.  We  started  with  very  fine  weather,  though 
in  mid-winter,  for  South  Africa  ;  we  put  in  at  Dur- 
ban, but  not  to  land  ;  we  skirted  along  the  coast 
then  called  No  Man's  Land,  where  we  saw  the 
Caffres  walking  about;  and  we  landed  at  Port 
Elizabeth,  where  we  had  time  to  look  round.  A 
man  who  could  talk  Caffre  carried  me  off  to  show 
me  a  kraal.  We  found  Port  Elizabeth  provided 
'°  145 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

with  fine  stone  warehouses,  waiting  for  the  trade  of 
the  future. 

That  evening  it  began  to  blow.  Off  the  Cape 
of  Good   Hope  —  formerly  the  Cape  of  Torments 

—  the  wind  is  believed  to  blow  harder  and  the  sea 
to  rise  higher  than  in  any  other  part  of  the  globe. 
We  proved  that  this  belief  is  well  founded.  The 
night  was  unendurable  in  the  cabin  ;  two  of  us 
spent  it  in  the  small  smoking-saloon  for'ard, 
wrapped  in  a  plaid.  In  the  middle  of  the  night  a 
huge  sea  broke  over  the  ship,  smashed  in  the  doors 
of  the  saloon  and  carried  them  out  to  sea ;  very 
luckily  it  did  not  carry  us  out  to  sea  with  the  doors. 
When  the  day  broke  at  last  we  found  that  all  our 
live  stock  —  our  sheep  and  fowls,  with  their  pens 

—  had  been  carried  away.  The  waves  were  moun- 
tainous. Presently  there  was  a  great  shouting  and 
whistling  ;  the  sea  had  torn  up  the  engine  room 
hatchway,  and  put  out  four  of  the  five  fires ;  a 
tarpaulin  was  rigged  on  hastily;  but  we  had  but 
one  fire  left  for  a  time. 

All  that  day,  with  the  other  man,  my  compan- 
ion of  the  smoking-saloon,  we  clung  to  the  davits 
watching  the  waves.  Every  time  we  rose  to  the 
top  of  a  wave,  our  hearts  sank  at  looking  into 
the  surging  valley  below ;  when  we  were  down, 
the  mountain  before  us  seemed  as  if  it  must 
swamp  and  sink  us.  This  lasted  for  four  days 
and  four  nights.  It  was  a  brave  and  a  staunch  little 
ship,  and  when  the  gale  at  last  abated  it  was 
found  that  we  had  been  driven  two  hundred  and 

146 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

fifty  miles  south  of  our  course.  Since  we  had 
come  out  of  the  storm  in  safety,  it  was  a  small 
thing  that  we  had  nothing  but  pork  in  various 
forms  to  live  upon  until  we  got  to  Cape  Town. 
The  delay  caused  us  to  lose  our  steamer  for  South- 
ampton. I,  for  one,  however,  was  quite  content  to 
stay  a  fortnight  at  Cape  Town  and  to  look  around. 

I  suppose  the  place  is  altered  in  thirty  years.  In 
1867  it  was  a  sleepy,  pleasant,  sunshiny  town,  with 
lovely  gardens.  There  was  a  college,  and  there  was 
a  House  of  Commons,  and  there  were  the  vine- 
yards and  the  wine-making  to  see.  There  were 
plenty  of  people  at  the  hotel.  I  called  upon  Mr. 
Southey,  the  Minister;  he  showed  me  the  first 
diamond  ever  found  in  South  Africa,  a  thing  as 
big  as  the  top  of  a  child's  little  finger.  I  attended  a 
debate  at  the  House,  and  was  pleased  to  observe  Mr. 
Southey's  patience  with  the  farmers  who  were  the 
members.  First,  he  stated  his  case,  quite  clearly ; 
then  the  members  rose  one  after  the  other  and 
stated  that  they  understood  nothing;  Mr.  Southey 
stated  it  again,  in  other  words,  quite  patiently ; 
again  they  got  up  and  betrayed  profound  misun- 
derstanding ;  a  third  time  he  put  the  case,  always 
with  patience  and  without  temper,  and  then  they 
began  to  understand. 

In  the  evening  there  was  always  a  gathering  of 
the  members  at  the  hotel.  Those  who  had  come 
from  England  talked  about  the  old  country  with 
affection.  One  of  them,  an  old  gentleman  of 
eighty-four,  who    afterwards    danced  a  hornpipe  to 

147 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

show  his  agility,  said  that  he  came  from  Fetter 
Lane.  I  asked  him  if  he  had  ever  met  Charles 
Lamb.  He  had  not,  he  said,  but  he  knew  Samuel 
Lamb  the  butcher.  The  Afrikander  Bond  in  these 
days  had  not  been  invented,  and  if  the  Dutch  had 
begun  to  dream  of  sweeping  the  English  into  the 
sea,  they  had  kept  their  dreams  to  themselves,  so  far 
as  I  know.  It  was  winter,  but  the  sun  was  pleas- 
ant, and  the  air  was  warm,  and  I  left  after  my 
brief  stay  with  real  regret.  We  had  a  delightful 
voyage,  with  no  bad  weather  at  either  end.  We 
saw  Ascension  and  landed  at  St.  Helena,  having 
time  to  drive  up  to  Longwood  and  see  Napoleon's 
last  residence.  I  should  say  that  there  are  worse 
places  to  live  in  than  St.  Helena ;  it  is  full  of 
flowers  and  the  trade  breeze  is  always  cool. 

And  so,  after  six  years  and  a  half,  I  landed  again 
at  Southampton.  The  time  had  completely  changed 
the  whole  current  of  my  thoughts  —  my  views  of 
society,  order,  religion,  everything.  I  went  out 
with  my  head  full  of  university  and  ecclesiastical 
prejudices.  I  believe  that  I  lost  them  all.  Gentle 
reader,  a  man  who  has  had  six  years  of  life  in  a 
colony  such  as  Mauritius,  where  all  kinds  of  men 
are  always  coming  and  going,  where  one  meets 
men  of  every  station  and  every  country,  where 
life  is  carried  on  under  conditions  which  cannot 
exist  in  England,  may  become  anything  you  please 
—  but  if  he  takes  to  literature,  he  can  never  be- 
come a  prig  ;  nor,  if  he  takes  to  politics,  can  he 
ever  become  the   advocate  of  a  ruling   caste  ;  nor 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  J  NT 

can  he  pursue  the  old  narrow  views  of  ecclesiasti- 
cal religion.  He  becomes  more  human  ;  he  has 
learned  at  least  the  lesson  that  in  humanity  there  is 
no  caste  that  is  common,  and  none  that  is  unclean. 
The  unclean  and  the  common  are  individual,  and 
not  general.  It  is  a  simple  lesson,  but  it  was  —  oh  ! 
—  so  very  much  wanted  in  the  sixties. 

Another  thing  that  I  found,  and  remember,  is 
that  in  the  colonies  there  are  so  many  good  fel- 
lows. There  is  less  struggle,  less  posing,  less  in- 
triguing, less  serving  of  personal  interest  than  we 
find  at  home  ;  less  envy,  less  jealousy,  less  malice ; 
more  friendliness,  more  hospitality,  more  kind- 
liness ;  and  less  caste.  Let  me  be  always  thankful 
for  my  colonial  experience. 

I  began  life  again  at  the  age  of  thirty-one.  My 
capital  was  a  pretty  extensive  knowledge  acquired 
by  voracious  and  indiscriminate  reading.  I  could 
write,  I  knew,  pretty  well,  having  got  over  that 
difficulty  of  which  I  have  spoken.  I  had  a  special 
branch  of  knowledge,  in  which  I  was  not  likely  at 
that  time  to  find  many  rivals,  though  since  then 
the  enormous  increase  of  writers  has  caused  an  in- 
crease of  competitors  in  every  branch,  including  old 
French  literature.  What  would  happen  I  knew 
not,  but  of  these  things  I  was  resolved  —  I  would 
not  go  back  to  the  Royal  College  of  Mauritius, 
nor  would  I  undertake  a  mastership  in  any  English 
school.  I  was  never  a  teacher  to  the  manner  born, 
nor  did  I  ever  take  really  kindly  to  the  work.     As 

149 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

regards  ways  and  means,  I  had  a  whole  twelvemonth 
on  half-pay  to  look  about  me,  and  I  had  a  few  —  a 
very  few  —  hundreds  in  my  pocket. 

A  man  who  goes  away  at  four-and-twenty  and 
comes  back  at  one-and-thirty  speedily  discovers  that 
his  old  place  among  his  friends  is  filled  up.  In 
seven  years  they  have  gone  off  on  different  roads, 
they  have  made  new  associates,  the  old  ties  are 
broken.  Moreover,  in  whatever  direction  such  a 
man  after  seven  years'  absence  turns,  he  is  met  by 
the  opposition  and  the  competition  of  those  younger 
than  himself,  who  are  backing  up  each  other.  Be- 
sides, it  is  felt  that  a  man  who  goes  out  to  a  colony 
ought — I  know  not  why  —  to  remain  there.  Un- 
der similar  circumstances,  it  would  be  now  much 
more  difficult  for  the  returned  colonial  to  make  an 
opening  than  it  was  thirty  years  ago.  I  understood 
that  my  opening  was  to  be  made  —  somehow  or 
other,  as  yet  I  knew  not  how  —  by  literature.  It 
was  a  resolution  which  one  had  to  keep  to  oneself. 
Everybody  ridiculed  it ;  an  attempt  to  live  by  lit- 
erature was  considered  certain  dependence  and  beg- 
gary;  indeed,  there  were  examples  in  plenty  to 
warrant  that  prejudice.  Thirty  years  ago  we  were 
not  far  from  the  memory  of  literary  Bohemia,  which 
used  to  be  freely  painted  in  colours  so  rosy,  yet  was 
a  country  so  full  of  privation,  debt,  duns,  and  de- 
pendence. I  had  no  intention  whatever  of  joining 
the  Bohemians.  I  say  that  I  did  not  quite  know 
what  I  should  do ;  but  I  was  resolved  that  I  would 
not  become  a  publisher's  hack ;  that  I   would  not 

ISO 


SIR      TF  J  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  NT 

hang  about  publishers'  offices  and  beg  for  work ; 
nor  write  introductions  and  edit  new  editions  at  five 
guineas  the  job  with  a  preface,  an  introductory  hfe, 
notes,  and  an  index  thrown  in.  I  meant  to  get  on 
by  means  of  Hterature  and  live  an  independent  life. 
Understanding,  as  I  do  now,  the  difficulties  which 
lay  in  the  way  before  me,  I  am  amazed  when  I  con- 
sider the  absolute  conjfidence  with  which  I  regarded 
the  future. 

My  furlough  I  spent  in  reading  and  in  travelling 
about  England,  of  which  I  had  seen,  hitherto,  so 
very  little.  As  regards  serious  work,  I  put  together 
my  papers,  notes,  and  studies,  and  wrote  a  book  on 
Early  French  Poetry,  which  was  published  in  the 
autumn  of  1868.  The  book  did  not  profess  to  be 
a  history  ;  it  was  simply  a  collection  of  separate 
studies.  It  did  as  well  as  one  could  have  expected 
from  the  nature  of  the  subject;  it  introduced  me  to 
the  world  as  a  specialist  who  could  discourse  pleas- 
antly on  a  subject  hitherto  treated,  if  at  all  in  this 
country,  by  Dryasdust  —  I  may  be  permitted  to  say 
so  much  in  my  own  praise.  There  was  an  edition 
of  750  copies  printed,  of  which  a  good  many  were 
satisfactorily  disposed  of.  The  arrangement  was 
that  which  is  humorously  called  "half  profits,"  and 
my  share  was  lis.  Sd.  or  Ss.  iid.,  or  some  such 
great  sum.  Of  course  I  now  understand  what  it 
meant;  but  the  amount  of  profit  in  such  a  case 
mattered  nothing  —  the  advantage  to  me  was  enor- 
mous. If  my  publishers  had  made  the  condition 
that  the  \\s.  Bd.  or  the  8j.  i  i^.  should  be  their  own, 

151 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

I  should  have  accepted  their  terms  joyfully  for  the 
sake  of  the  introduction  to  the  public. 

In  June  1868  a  great  piece  of  luck  came  to  me 
in  the  shape  of  a  post  as  secretary  to  a  society.  It 
was  exactly  what  I  wanted ;  the  salary  was  sufficient 
for  bread  and  cheese,  the  hours  were  not  excessive, 
leaving  plenty  of  time  for  my  own  work,  and  the 
associations  were  eminently  respectable.  It  was  the 
Society  for  the  Systematic  and  Scientific  Exploration 
of  Palestine.  Thomson,  Archbishop  of  York,  was 
our  chairman  ;  our  general  committee  contained  a 
most  imposing  Hst  of  names ;  and  on  our  executive 
committee  were  James  Glaisher,  F.R.S.,  afterwards 
chairman;  W.  S.  W.  Vaux,  the  numismatist;  Canon 
Tristram,  F.R.S. ;  Hepworth  Dixon,  the  editor  of 
the  Athenaum  —  he  died  at  Christmas  1879  ;  James 
Fergusson,  F.R.S.,  the  writer  on  architectural 
history;  J.  L.  Donaldson,  professor  of  architecture ; 
WiUiam  Longman,  publisher ;  Professor  Hayter 
Lewis,  architect,  and  successor  of  Professor  Donald- 
son ;  Walter  Morrison,  M.P. ;  Sir  George  Grove, 
afterwards  Director  of  the  College  of  Music ;  and 
the  Rev.  F.  W.  Holland,  who  spent  most  of  his 
holidays  in  the  peninsula  of  Sinai. 

For  eighteen  years  I  continued  to  be  the  paid 
secretary  of  this  society.  During  that  time  were 
conducted  the  excavations  at  Jerusalem  by  Captain 
(now  Sir  Charles)  Warren  ;  the  survey  of  Western 
Palestine  by  Captain  (now  Colonel)  Conder  and 
Captain  Kitchener  (now  Lord  Kitchener) ;  and  the 
Geological  Survey  of  Palestine  by  Professor  Hull, 

152 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

F.R.S. — besides  the  Archaeological  Survey  by  M. 
Clermont  Ganneau.  The  work  of  the  society  has, 
in  fact,  completely  changed  the  whole  of  the  old 
geography,  topography,  and  archaeology  of  the 
Holy  Land ;  it  has  restored  to  the  Temple  its  true 
grandeur,  and  to  Jerusalem  its  ancient  splendour  ;  it 
has  shown  the  country,  formerly  populous  and 
highly  cultivated,  dotted  over  with  strong  and 
great  cities  —  Tiberias  alone,  which  had  been  called 
a  litde  fishing-village,  has  been  proved  to  have  been 
a  city  with  a  wall  as  great  in  extent  as  the  wall  of 
the  City  of  London.  The  work  brought  me  into 
personal  contact  with  a  great  number  of  men  em- 
inent in  many  ways.  Among  them  I  may  mention 
the  philanthropic  Lord  Shaftesbury,  Sir  Moses 
Montefiore,  Professor  Pusey,  A.  J.  Beresford-Hope, 
General  Charles  Gordon,  Laurence  Oliphant,  Sir 
Charles  Wilson,  Sir  Charles  Warren,  Lord  Kitch- 
ener, and  Sir  Richard  Burton,  to  say  nothing  of 
many  bishops,  scholars,  and  archaeologists. 

I  remained,  as  I  said,  as  paid  secretary  for  about 
eighteen  years,  and  as  honorary  secretary  I  have 
remained  ever  since.  During  my  official  work  as 
paid  secretary  I  made  many  friends  by  means  of 
the  society.  First  and  foremost  among  them  was 
Edward  Palmer,  Lord  Almoner's  Professor  of  Ara- 
bic in  the  University  of  Cambridge.  That  great 
linguist  and  fine  Oriental  scholar  explored  for  the 
society,  with  the  late  W.  T.  Tyrwhitt  Drake,  the 
Desert  of  the  Wanderings.  He  could  enter  into 
and  understand  every   man's    brain ;  he    had    that 

153 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

quick  sympathy,  that  feminine  perception  of  things, 
which  make  the  thought-reader.  No  man  that  I 
ever  met  with  in  this  my  earthly  pilgrimage  has 
been  able  so  profoundly  to  impress  his  personality 
upon  his  friends.  He  was  a  great  scholar,  yet  had 
none  of  the  scholarly  dignity  ;  he  mostly  sat  telling 
stories  and  bubbling  over  with  natural  mirth.  He 
was  always  doing  strange  and  unexpected  things. 
Once  the  whole  town  was  placarded  with  posters, 
half  in  English,  half  in  Arabic;  again.  Palmer  in- 
vented a  new  and  surprising  trick  which  was  brought 
out  at  the  old  Polytechnic  ;  on  another  occasion  he 
presented  his  friends  with  a  volume  of  serious 
poetry  ;  then  with  a  burlesque ;  then  he  translated 
the  Koran,  dictating  it  in  a  sort  of  monotone,  as  if 
he  were  reading  the  original  in  a  mosque.  In  ap- 
pearance he  was  a  remarkable  being  :  a  little  man 
with  a  large  head,  curiously  delicate  features,  a  hand 
like  a  woman's,  eyes  unnaturally  bright,  brown  hair, 
and  a  long  silky  beard.  When  he  was  eighteen, 
being  then  in  a  City  office,  he  was  sent  home  to  die 
of  consumption ;  but  he  did  not  die;  he  diverted 
his  thoughts  from  death  by  learning  Arabic  and 
Persian,  but  he  always  preserved  the  delicate  com- 
plexion. He  suffered  from  asthma,  which  hardly 
ever  left  him. 

Till  the  age  of  thirty-eight  or  so  he  lived  at 
Cambridge,  lecturing,  reading,  teaching,  examining, 
and  picking  up  new  languages  every  day.  Then  a 
great  change  came  upon  his  life.  Through  the 
failure  of  a  cousin  he  became  involved  to  the  extent 

154 


SIR      IVALTER      BESANT 

of  some  ^^1,500.  He  had  not  a  penny;  moreover, 
his  wife  was  living  in  France  —  or  rather  dying  in 
France  —  which  obliged  him  to  keep  up  a  separate 
establishment  and  to  be  running  over  to  Paris  con- 
tinually to  look  after  her.  He  made  an  arrange- 
ment with  his  creditors.  He  assigned  to  them  his 
fellowship  and  professorship  —  about  ;^400  a  year 
—  until  they  should  be  paid  in  full,  and  he  came  to 
London  penniless,  but  full  of  confidence.  He  be- 
came a  leader-writer  for  the  Standard^  and  there  was 
never  any  further  trouble  about  money  except  that 
he  always  spent  everything  as  fast  as  it  came  in.  In 
1882,  when  the  trouble  with  Egypt  began,  and  the 
Suez  Canal  was  threatened,  he  undertook  for  the 
Government  a  journey  in  the  Sinai  Desert  in  order 
to  keep  the  Arabs  quiet.  He  went  out  alone  ;  dis- 
guised as  a  Syrian  Eifendi,  he  travelled  through  the 
desert  in  the  height  of  the  summer  heat ;  he  saw 
sheikh  after  sheikh,  and  made  them  promise  not  to 
harm  the  canal  ;  he  arrived  safely  at  Suez,  his  mis- 
sion accomplished.  He  had,  however,  to  take 
some  money  to  his  new  allies,  and  was  treacher- 
ously murdered  by  a  party  of  Arabs  sent  from 
Cairo  for  the  purpose.  The  murder,  like  every- 
thing else  that  belongs  to  Palmer's  history,  had  in 
it  all  the  elements  of  the  picturesque,  the  weird,  and 
the  wonderful.  The  party  were  caught  in  the 
night,  and  all  night  long  the  captors  discussed  what 
should  be  done  with  their  prisoners.  They  were 
afraid  of  murdering  them  for  some  reason ;  prob- 
ably Palmer's  guides  filled  them  with  terror,  telling 

15s 


AUTOBIOGRJPHT      OF 

them  how  great  a  man  was  the  Effendi  Abdullah, 
what  a  power  among  the  Sinai  Arabs,  what  a  scholar. 
But  at  last  their  obedience  to  their  chiefs  overcame 
terror.  They  ran  upon  Palmer  with  swords,  and 
threw  his  bleeding  body  over  the  crags  and  rocks 
into  the  valley  below.  And  so  they  treated  his 
companions  Gill  and  Charrington.  Sir  Charles 
Warren,  sent  out  for  the  purpose,  hunted  down 
and  hanged  every  one  of  the  murderers.  Palmer's 
portrait  hangs  in  the  hall  of  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge,  but  I  fear  that  his  history  is  no  longer 
remembered  by  the  undergraduates. 

Let  me  give  here  a  certain  elegy  which  I  wrote  for 
the  Rabelais  Club  of  which  Palmer  was  a  member:  — 

THE   DEATH   OF   THE   SHEIKH   ABDULLAH. 

**  The  blood-red  dawn  rolls  westward  ;   crag  and  steep 
Welcome  the  splendid  day  with  purple  glow  ; 
Through  the  dim  gorges  shape  and  outline  creep, 
And  deeper  seem  the  black  depths  far  below. 

"Earth  hath  no  wilder  place  her  lands  among; 
Here  is  no  cool  green  spot,  no  pleasant  thing  ; 
No  shade  of  lordly  bough,  no  sweet  birds'  song. 
No  gracious  meadows,  and  no  flowers  of  spring. 

"  The  eagle  builds  his  eyrie  on  these  peaks ; 
Below  the  jackal  and  hyena  prowl : 
No  gentle  creature  here  her  pasture  seeks. 
But  fiery  serpents  lurk,  and  vulture  foiil. 

"  I  see  a  figure,  where  the  rock  sinks  sheer 
Into  a  gorge  too  deep  for  noontide  sun ; 
Above,  the  sky  of  morning  pure  and  clear  — 
Others  are  there,  but  I  see  only  one. 
156 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

"  In  Syrian  robes,  like  some  old  warrior  free. 
After  fierce  fight  a  captive,  so  he  stands. 
Gazing  his  last  —  sweet  are  the  skies  to  see. 

And  sweet  the  sunshine  breaking  o'er  the  lands. 

"Then,  while  the  light  of  wrath  prophetic  fills 
His  awful  eyes,  he  hurls  among  his  foes  — 
Wild  echoes  ringing  round  the  'frighted  hills  — 
A  flaming  prophecy  of  helpless  woes. 

*'  Yea;  like  a  Hebrew  Prophet  doth  he  tell 

Of  swift  revenge  and  death  and  women's  moan; 
And  stricken  babes  and  burning  pains  of  hell. 
Then  each  man's  traitor  heart  fell  cold  as  stone. 

"  And  through  their  strong  limbs  fearful  tremblings  crept. 

And  brown  cheeks  paled,  and  down  dropped  every  head; 
Then,  with  a  last  fierce  prophecy  he  leaped. 

My  God  !   Abdullah  —  Palmer  —  art  thou  dead  ?" 

A  society  such  as  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund 
naturally  attracts  all  the  cranks,  especially  the  relig- 
ious cranks.  There  was  one  man  who  was  a  mixture 
of  geographical  science  and  of  religious  crankiness. 
He  claimed  to  be  the  son  of  the  founder  of  the 
Plymouth  Brethren  ;  he  had  vast  ideas  on  the 
rebuilding  of  Babylon,  that  it  might  once  more 
become  the  geographical  centre  of  European  and 
Asiatic  trade.  As  a  matter  of  fact  we  only  have  to 
consider  the  position  of  Babylon  in  order  to  under- 
stand that  when  the  country  is  taken  over  by  a 
European  Power,  and  the  valley  of  the  Euphrates 
is  once  more  drained  and  cultivated,  that  great  city 
will  again  revive.     But  with  this  insight  he  mixed 

157 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

up  a  queer  religion,  in  which  Nimrod  played  a 
great  part.  He  would  talk  about  Nimrod  as  long 
as  I  allowed  him.  And  then  I  heard  of  a  grand 
project  in  which  he  was  concerned.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  the  cutting  of  a  sea-canal  from  the  northern 
end  of  the  Gulf  of  Akaba  to  the  south  of  the  Dead 
Sea ;  this  canal  would  flood  the  Jordan  valley  and 
create  a  large  central  lake  over  that  valley  extending 
for  some  miles  on  either  hand.  Then,  with  a  short 
railway  across  Galilee,  there  would  be  a  new  water- 
way, with  possible  extension  by  rail  and  canal  to 
Persia  and  India.  The  project  was  seriously  con- 
sidered; a  meeting  was  held  in  the  office  of  the 
Palestine  Exploration  Fund,  at  which  the  then 
Duke  of  Sutherland  and  others  consulted  Sir 
Charles  Warren  and  Captain  Conder  on  the 
possibility  of  constructing  the  canal.  The  duke 
could  not,  or  would  not,  be  persuaded  that  a 
cutting  for  so  many  miles  of  seven  hundred  feet 
deep  at  least  would  be  practically  impossible.  I 
think  there  must  have  been  some  political  business 
at  the  back  of  the  project,  of  which,  however, 
nothing  more  was  heard. 

The  man  who  could  read  all  ancient  inscriptions 
by  means  of  the  original  alphabet,  entirely  con- 
structed of  equilateral  triangles,  was  amusing  at  first 
but  became  tedious.  The  man  who  saw  "  Nature 
Worship,"  to  use  the  common  euphemism,  in 
everything  ancient  also  became  tedious.  The  man 
who  wanted  the  society  to  send  out  an  expedition 
to  Ararat  for  the  recovery  of  the  Ark,  was  extremely 

158 


SIR      TVALTER     BESANT 

interesting.  The  Ark,  it  seems,  is  lying  embedded 
in  ice  and  snow  on  the  top  of  that  mountain  ;  all 
we  have  to  do  is  to  blow  up  the  ice  with  dynamite, 
when  the  Ark  will  be  revealed.  The  man  who 
knew  where  to  lay  his  hand  upon  the  Ark  of  the 
Covenant,  if  we  would  send  him  out  for  the  purpose, 
was  perhaps  a  knave,  perhaps  a  crank.  But  crank- 
ery  and  knavery  sometimes  overlap.  The  man  who 
knew  where  the  monks  buried  their  treasure  on  the 
fall  of  the  Latin  Kingdom  was  also  perhaps  knave  and 
perhaps  crank.  He  had  got  hold  of  an  Italian  book 
about  buried  treasure  in  Palestine,  and  believed  it. 

Then  there  was  a  man  who  had  a  road  upon  his 
mind.  It  is  a  road  in  Eastern  Palestine,  which  has 
milestones  upon  it,  and  is  a  well  constructed  road, 
and  starts  right  into  the  desert.  Where  does  it  go  ? 
He  was  always  inquiring  about  this  road ;  and  in- 
deed it  is  a  very  curious  thing  that  the  road,  men- 
tioned by  Gibbon,  should  have  been  so  carefully 
constructed,  and  one  would  really  like  to  know 
where  it  goes.  The  man  who  could  prove  that 
Mount  Sinai  is  not  Hor  and  that  the  survey  of  the 
Sinai  peninsula  was  therefore  a  useless  piece  of  work, 
wrote  a  book  about  it,  and  so  reheved  his  mind. 
He  was  an  interesting  man  ;  he  had  been  an  army 
surgeon  in  the  Crimea  ;  then  he  became  a  barrister, 
and  got  into  notice  by  defending  the  prisoner  charged 
with  the  Clerkenwell  explosion ;  then  he  became 
a  leader-writer  for  the  Morning  Post^  with  this  fad 
about  Mount  Sinai  to  keep  him  in  a  wholesome 
condition  of  excitement  and  interest.      I   know  not 

159 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

how  many  converts  he  made,  but  I  think,  for  my 
own  part,  that  he  was  perhaps  right. 

In  the  course  of  my  work  at  the  Palestine  Ex- 
ploration Society  I  was  connected  officially  with  one 
great  discovery  and  one  great  fraud.  The  discovery 
was  that  of  the  Moabite  Stone  —  an  event  which 
forced  the  world  to  acknowledge  the  historical  char- 
acter of  part,  at  least,  of  the  Old  Testament.  The 
discovery  was  made  by  a  German  missionary  em- 
ployed by  an  English  society.  Being  in  English 
employment,  he  communicated  his  discovery  to  the 
German  Court.  At  the  same  time  M.  Clermont 
Ganneau,  then  chancelier  of  the  French  Consulate, 
heard  of  it,  and  Warren  heard  of  it.  Negotiations 
were  briskly  begun  ;  but  the  Arabs,  in  the  end, 
thinking  that  it  was  a  magical  stone,  since  so  many 
Europeans  wanted  to  get  it,  broke  it  to  pieces. 
Then  Warren  procured  squeezes  of  the  inscription, 
which  were  sent  home.  These  precious  documents 
we  had  photographed.  The  treasurer  of  the  society, 
Mr.  Walter  Morrison,  kindly  shared  with  me  the 
task  of  watching  the  work  in  the  photographer's 
studio,  because  we  were  afraid  of  letting  the  docu- 
ments go  out  of  our  sight  and  our  hands.  When 
we  had  our  photographs,  the  squeezes  became  less 
valuable.  We  sent  copies  round  to  the  best  known 
Hebrew  scholars,  and  all  began  to  write  books  and 
monographs.  We  found  a  great  quantity  of  things 
in  the  course  of  our  excavations  and  our  surveys, 
but  never  again  did  we  make  so  splendid  a  "  find  " 
as  that  of  the  Moabite  Stone. 

1 60 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  J  NT 

Some  years  later  —  I  think  about  1877 — a  cer- 
tain Shapira,  a  Polish  Jew  converted  to  Christianity 
but  not  to  good  works,  came  to  England  and  called 
upon  me  mysteriously.  He  had  with  him,  he  said, 
a  document  which  would  simply  make  students  of 
the  Bible  and  Hebrew  scholars  reconsider  their 
ways  ;  it  would  throw  a  flood  of  light  upon  the 
Pentateuch ;  and  so  on.  The  man  was  a  good 
actor  ;  he  was  a  man  of  handsome  presence,  tall, 
with  fair  hair  and  blue  eyes ;  not  the  least  like 
the  ordinary  Polish  Jew,  and  with  an  air  of  modest 
honesty  which  carried  one  away.  What  was  his 
discovery  ?  First  he  would  not  tell  me.  Then  I 
said  that  he  might  go  away.  So  he  told  me.  It 
was  nothing  less  than  a  contemporary  copy  of  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy  written  on  parchment.  A 
contemporary  copy  !  Could  I  see  it  ?  I  might 
see  a  piece,  which  he  pulled  out  of  his  pocket-book. 
It  was  written  in  fine  black  ink,  as  fresh  after  three 
thousand  years  as  when  it  was  laid  on  ;  and  in  the 
Phcenician  characters  of  the  Moabite  Stone.  It  had 
been  preserved,  he  told  me,  through  being  deposited 
in  a  perfectly  dry  cave  in  Moab.  Then  I  suggested 
that  he  should  make  this  discovery  known  to  the 
world.  He  consented,  after  a  while,  to  reveal  it 
to  two  persons.  Dr.  Ginsburg,  the  great  Hebrew 
scholar,  and  Captain  Conder,  the  Surveyor  of 
Western  Palestine.  I  undertook  to  invite  them 
to  come  on  the  morrow.  But  Ginsburg  considered 
that  the  invitation  included  his  friends,  and  so  the 
whole  of  the  British  Museum,  so  to  speak,  with 
II  161 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

all  the  Hebrew  scholars  in  London,  turned  up, 
and  with  them  Conder.  Shapira  unfolded  his  MS. 
amid  such  excitement  as  is  very  seldom  exhibited 
by  scholars.  The  exposition  lasted  about  three 
hours ;  then  Shapira  tore  off  a  piece  of  the  pre- 
cious document  to  show  the  nature  of  the  parch- 
ment. It  was,  as  one  of  the  company  remarked, 
wonderfully  modern  in  appearance,  and  a  remark- 
able illustration  of  the  arts  as  known  and  practised 
in  the  time  of  Moses.  Then  Shapira  withdrew ; 
and  after  a  little  conversation  the  learned  company 
separated.  As  they  went  out,  one  of  them,  a  pro- 
fessor of  Hebrew,  exclaimed  with  conviction,  "  This 
is  one  of  the  few  things  which  could  not  be  a  for- 
gery and  a  fraud  ! " 

There  were  left  with  me  Captain  Conder  and 
William  Simpson,  of  the  Illustrated  London  News. 
Said  Simpson  dryly,  "  He  values  his  MS.  at  a 
million.  Of  course  he  could  spare  the  value  of  the 
bit  he  tore  off.  I  suppose  it  is  worth  XS^*^-"  ^^ 
he  chuckled  and  went  his  way.  Simpson  entertained 
a  low  view  of  the  worthy  Shapira,  Christian  convert. 
Then  Conder,  who  had  been  very  quiet,  only  putting 
in  a  little  question  from  time  to  time,  spoke.  "  I 
observe,"  he  said,  "  that  all  the  points  objected  to 
by  German  critics  have  vanished  in  this  new  and 
epoch-making  trouvaille.  The  geography  is  not 
confused,  and  Moses  does  not  record  his  own 
death." 

"  Well  ?  "  I  asked,  for  more  was  in  his  face. 

"  And  I  know,  I  believe,  all  the  caves  of  Moab, 
162 


SIR      WALTER     BESANT 

and  they  are  all  damp  and  earthy.  There  is  not  a 
dry  cave  in  the  country." 

"  Then  you  think ?  " 

"  Precisely." 

Clermont  Ganneau,  who  was  in  Paris,  came  over 
to  see  the  precious  MS.  A  few  days  passed ;  the 
learned  divines  and  professors  were  hanging  over 
the  MS.  preparing  their  commentaries.  Ganneau 
asked  permission  to  see  the  MS.,  and  then  all  the 
fat  was  in  the  fire.  "  I  know,"  he  said,  "  how  this 
MSo  was  obtained.  The  parchment  is  cut  from  the 
margins  of  Hebrew  manuscripts,  some  of  them  of 
considerable  antiquity.  The  writing  is  that  of  yes- 
terday." 

Alas  !  that  was  so.  That  was  exactly  what  had 
been  done.  Shapira  received  his  MS.  back  without 
any  offer  of  a  hundred  pounds,  not  to  speak  of  a 
million.  It  was  too  much  for  the  poor  man;  the 
work  had  cost  him  so  much  trouble,  he  had  reck- 
oned with  so  much  faith  on  the  success  of  his  care- 
ful and  learned  forgery,  that  his  mind  became 
unhinged.  He  hanged  himself.  I  believe  that  the 
disappointment  of  the  Hebrew  scholars,  who  had 
begun  learned  books  on  the  newly  discovered  text, 
was  pitiful.  Shapira  left  with  me,  and  it  was  never 
reclaimed,  the  leaden  cover  of  Samson's  coffin.  Yes, 
nothing  less  than  the  coffin  of  Samson  Agonistes, 
Samson  the  strong,  Samson  the  victim  of  woman's 
wiles.  Shapira  said  that  he  was  not  absolutely 
certain  about  it ;  he  should  be  most  sorry  to  mis- 
lead;  the  truth  was  that  he  could  not  be  sure;   but 

163 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

there  was  on  the  leaden  roll  the  name,  nowhere  else 
occurring  in  Hebrew  literature :  the  actual  name  of 
Samson  in  Phoenician  characters  —  plain  for  all  to 
read. 

There  were  many  more  days  of  discovery  and 
murmured  discovery  ;  arrivals  of  drawings,  copies 
of  inscriptions,  statuettes,  and  other  things,  all  of 
which  kept  that  quiet  office  alive.  Conder  discov- 
ered old  towns  and  sites  by  fifties;  Ganneau  found 
the  head  of  the  Roman  statue  set  up  by  the  Romans 
on  the  site  of  the  Holy  of  Holies;  he  also  found 
the  stone  of  the  Temple  warning  strangers  not  to 
cross  the  barrier  on  pain  of  death.  Gordon  found, 
as  he  thought,  the  true  place  of  the  Crucifixion  ; 
and  there  was  always  running  on  the  old  contro- 
versy about  the  sacred  site.  For  my  part  I  have 
always  agreed  with  Conder  that  when  a  site  is  ac- 
cepted by  tradition  common  to  Christian,  Jew,  and 
Moslem,  that  site  is  probably  correct ;  the  excava- 
tions and  discoveries  made  on  the  site  of  the  tradi- 
tional Holy  Sepulchre  continually  furnished  new 
arguments  in  favour  of  that  tradition,  and  history 
seems  to  me  to  be  entirely  on  that  side. 

As  we  wanted  as  much  history  as  we  could  get, 
I  created  a  small  society  among  the  people  interested 
in  these  things  for  the  translation  and  publication 
of  the  ancient  pilgrimages.  We  had  about  one 
hundred  and  twenty  members.  One  translation 
was  done  by  Aubrey  Stewart,  late  Fellow  of  Trinity 
College,  Cambridge  ;  Guy  L'Estrange,  Conder,  and 
one  or  two  more  helped ;  Sir  Charles  Wilson  anno- 

164 


SIR     IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

tated  the  books.  In  about  ten  years  we  accom- 
plished the  task  that  we  had  set  before  us  in  our 
original  prospectus  —  we  had  translated  the  writings 
of  all  the  old  pilgrims.  I  am  quite  sure  that  no 
society"  ever  before  did  so  much  with  so  small  an 
income.  To  be  sure,  we  had  no  office  clerks  to 
pay  ;  and  our  work  was  mostly  gratuitous.  I  have 
always  been  proud  of  my  share  in  creating  this  sub- 
sidiary society  and  in  producing  this  series.  The 
work  will  certainly  never  be  done  again.  There 
were  so  few  copies  —  not  more  than  two  hundred, 
I  believe  —  that  our  labours  are  practically  unknown 
except  to  those  who  study  the  topography,  the  geog- 
raphy, and  the  buildings  of  the  Holy  Land. 

The  work  of  the  main  society  all  this  time  was 
going  on  quietly.  I  had  organised  a  system  of 
local  societies  all  over  the  country,  and  had  sent 
lecturers  to  explain  what  we  were  doing.  Conse- 
quently I  was  enabled  to  supply  our  party  in  Pales- 
tine with  ample  funds.  The  survey  cost  in  round 
figures  £100  a  month  ;  and  when  Clermont  Gan- 
neau  went  out  for  us  on  a  special  archaeological 
mission,  he  wanted  about  X^*-"-^  ^  month  more. 
The  public  interest  in  our  proceedings  was  main- 
tained by  the  publication  of  the  society's  quarterly 
journal.  There  were,  however,  naturally  times  of 
doubt  and  trouble.  Thus,  in  1874  —  when  I  had 
to  find  all  the  money  month  by  month,  to  translate 
Ganneau's  voluminous  and  highly  technical  memoirs, 
to  edit  the  journal  and  to  receive  all  the  visitors  — 
I  was  married.     This  event  took  place  in  October. 

165 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

Three  days  before  my  wedding  I  received  a  note 
from  Messrs.  Coutts  &  Co.  Two  bills  had  been 
presented  —  one  from  Conder  and  the  other  from 
Ganneau  —  amounting  together  to  about  ^300 
more  than  we  had  in  the  bank.  What  was  to  be 
done?  Mostof  my  people  were  out  of  town.  One 
man  lent  me  ^50,  another  X^5j  ^  could  spare  X75> 
and  so  on.  I  went  down  into  the  country  at  last 
with  the  comfortable  assurance  that  these  bills,  at 
least,  would  be  met.  But  what  was  to  happen 
next?  My  own  honeymoon,  which  I  had  planned 
for  three  weeks,  was  curtailed  to  less  than  a  week, 
and  I  came  back  to  the  empty  exchequer  with  a  good 
deal  of  anxiety.  But  the  local  societies  poured  in 
their  contributions ;  the  next  bills  were  met ;  the  ad- 
vances were  repaid ;  and  I  went  on  with  furnishing 
a  modest  semi-detached  house  at  Shepherd's  Bush. 
The  secretaryship  of  the  Palestine  Exploration 
Fund,  a  small  thing  which  began  at  £100  a  year 
and  after  a  few  years  was  increased  to  ^300,  was 
the  cause  —  the  sole  cause  —  which  enabled  me  to 
realise  my  dream  of  a  literary  life  without  depen- 
dence, and  therefore  without  degradation.  1  shall 
go  on  in  the  next  chapters  to  show  how  I  realised 
that  dream.  At  present  I  would  only  note  the 
broad  fact  that  never  at  any  time  was  I  depen- 
dent on  my  pen  for  a  subsistence.  Until  my 
marriage  my  salary  was  just  sufficient  to  enable  me 
to  live  in  reasonable  comfort.  Therefore  I  was  in 
easy  circumstances,  comparatively.  There  was  no 
pressing  need  for  me  to  write ;    I   could  affi^rd  to 

166 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

give  time  to  things.  Moreover,  although  my 
office  hours  were  supposed  to  be  from  ten  to  four, 
as  a  rule,  except  in  one  or  two  years,  there  was 
not  enough  work  to  occupy  a  quarter  of  the  time. 
To  be  sure,  visitors  came  in  and  wasted  the  time. 
But  almost  every  day  I  had  the  greater  part  of 
the  morning  to  myself.  After  the  letters  had  been 
answered  I  could  carry  on  my  own  work  in  a  per- 
fectly quiet  office,  I  could  give  the  afternoon  to 
visitors,  and  from  four  till  seven  I  was  again  free 
to  carry  on  my  work  without  interruption  in  my 
chambers. 

I  would  urge  upon  everybody  who  proposes  to 
make  a  bid  for  literary  success  to  do  so  with  some 
backing  —  a  mastership  in  a  school,  a  Civil  Service 
clerkship,  a  post  as  secretary  to  some  institution  or 
society  ;  anything,  anything,  rather  than  dependence 
on  the  pen,  and  the  pen  alone. 


167 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 


Chapter  IX 

FIRST   STEPS   IN   THE   LITERARY   CAREER  — AND 
LATER 

I  AM  going  to  show  in  this  chapter  how  I  got 
my  feet  on  the  lower  rungs  of  the  ladder,  and 
how  I  began  to  climb. 
I  go  back  to  1868.  My  book  on  early  French 
poetry  was  out  and  had  succeeded  among  the  re- 
viewers. At  least  I  had  gained  a  start  and  a  hear- 
ing, and,  as  I  very  soon  found  out,  was  regarded 
benevolently  by  certain  editors  as  a  man  of  some 
promise.  It  was  in  this  year  that  I  made  the 
acquaintance  of  James  Rice ;  he  was  the  editor  and 
proprietor  of  Once  a  Week.  I  have  already  spoken 
of  my  voyage  to  the  Island  of  Reunion,  and  men- 
tioned the  paper  I  wrote  about  it.  This  paper  was 
not  acknowledged  by  the  editor,  but  happening  one 
day  to  take  up  Once  a  Week  on  a  railway  stall,  I 
found  my  paper  in  it  —  printed  badly,  uncorrected, 
and  full  of  mistakes.  Naturally  I  wrote  an  angry 
letter,  and  in  reply  received  a  note  in  very  courteous 
terms  inviting  me  to  call.  I  did  so,  and  learned 
that  the  editor  had  just  taken  over  the  paper.  He 
had  found  my  article  in  type  and  published  it, 
knowing  nothing  of  the  author  ;  he  added  compli- 
mentary remarks  on  the  paper  and  invited  me  to 

168 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

write  more  for  him,  an  invitation  which  I  accepted 
with  much  satisfaction. 

Next  I  had  an  invitation  from  the  late  George 
Bentley,  editor  of  I'emple  Bar^  to  write  for  his  maga- 
zine more  studies  in  French  Hterature.  For  six  or 
seven  years  I  continued  to  write  papers  for  this 
magazine,  perhaps  three  or  four  every  year  ;  towards 
the  end  of  that  time,  not  so  many. 

About  the  year  1870  I  was  invited  to  write  for 
the  British  ^arterly  Review^  to  which  I  contributed 
some  half-a-dozen  essays,  which  cost  me  a  great  deal 
of  time  and  work  ;  among  them  were  papers  entitled 
"  The  Failure  of  the  French  Reformation,"  "  Ad- 
miral Coligny,"  the  "  Romance  of  the  Rose,"  and 
"  French  Literary  Clubs"  ;  and  in  the  year  1871  I 
wrote  a  paper  ^or  Macmillan  s  Magazine  on  Rabelais. 

In  1870,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Franco-Prussian 
War,  the  Marseillaise  was  restored  to  France  as  its 
national  anthem.  I  happened  to  know  the  history 
of  that  hymn  and  sent  a  short  paper  on  the  subject 
to  the  Daily  News.  The  editor  not  only  accepted 
it,  but  called  upon  me  and  asked  for  more.  This 
led  to  the  contributions  of  leading  articles  on  social 
subjects  to  that  paper.  I  was  never  on  the  regular 
staff,  but  when  I  had  a  subject  and  could  find  the 
time,  I  would  offer  an  article,  and  it  was  seldom 
that  it  was  refused. 

In  1873  I  gathered  together  a  group  of  my  vari- 
ous papers  and  brought  them  out  in  volume  form 
called   T'he  French  Humorists. 

By  this  time,  then,  I  was  in  a  position  to  have 
169 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

as  many  papers  as  I  could  write  accepted.  I  would 
beg  the  candidate  for  literature  to  consider  how  it 
was  done  :  — 

I.  I  was  not  dependent  on  literature — I  could 
spend  time  on  my  work. 

1.  I  began  by  producing  a  book  on  the  subject 
on  which  I  desired  to  be  considered  a  specialist. 
The  work  had  a  succes  d'estimcy  and  in  a  sense  made 
my  literary  fortune. 

3.  This  book  opened  the  doors  for  me  of  ma- 
gazines and  reviews. 

4.  The  knowledge  of  French  matters  also  opened 
the  door  of  the  daily  press  to  me. 

5.  I  followed  up  the  line  by  a  second  book  on 
the  same  subject.  The  press  were  again,  on  the 
whole,  very  civil. 

Circumstances  obliged  me  to  give  up  the  pursuit 
of  French  literature,  but  I  had  at  least  succeeded  in 
gaining  a  special  reputation  and  in  making  an  ex- 
cellent start  as  a  writer  on  one  subject.  I  was,  of 
course,  content  with  small  returns.  For  my  paper 
on  the  "  Romance  of  the  Rose,"  which  cost  me  six 
months  and  more  of  soHd  work,  I  received  £2']. 
Between  1868  and  1873  inclusive,  I  do  not  suppose 
that  I  ever  made  so  much  as  X^^o  a  year  for  all 
this  work.  I  was,  however,  unmarried,  I  lived  in 
chambers,  and  I  still  kept  my  secretaryship.  It  is 
really  astonishing  how  well  one  can  live  as  a  bachelor 
on  quite  a  small  income.  My  rent  was  ^40  a  year  ; 
my  laundress,  washing,  coals,  lights,  and  breakfast 
cost   me  about  £^0  a  year.      My  dinners  — it  is  a 

170 


SIR      WALTER     B  ES  A  NT 

great  mistake  not  to  feed  well  —  cost  me  about 
thirty  shillings  a  week.  Altogether  I  could  live 
very  well  indeed  on  about  ^250  a  year.  Practi- 
cally I  spent  more,  because  I  travelled  whenever 
I  could  get  away,  and  bought  books,  and  was 
fond  of  good  claret.  The  great  thing  in  literary 
work  is  always  the  same  —  to  be  independent :  not 
to  worry  about  money,  and  not  to  be  compelled 
to  go  pot-boiling.  I  could  afford  to  be  anxious 
about  the  work  and  not  to  be  anxious  at  all  about 
money.  And  I  think  that  the  happiest  circum- 
stance of  my  literary  career  is  that  when  the 
money  became  an  object,  the  money  began  to 
come  in.  While  I  wanted  but  little,  the  income 
was  small. 

During  this  time  I  was  simply  making  my  way 
alone  without  any  literary  acquaintance  at  all,  and 
quite  apart  from  any  literary  circles.  I  have  never 
belonged  to  any  cenacle^  "  school,"  or  Bohemian 
set.  My  friends  were  few  :  one  or  two  of  the  old 
Cambridge  lot,  a  stray  Mauritian  or  two,  an  old 
schoolfellow  or  two.  We  got  up  whist  in  my 
chambers.  I  went  to  the  theatre  a  good  deal  ;  to 
society  I  certainly  did  not  belong  in  any  sense. 
And  as  I  was  perfectly  happy  with  my  private 
work  in  my  chambers  and  with  such  solace  of 
company  as  offered,  I  might  have  continued  to  the 
end  in  this  seclusion  and  solitude,  but  for  the  hand 
of  fate,  which  kindly  pulled  me  out. 

My  travels  at  this  period  were,  like  my  daily  life, 
principally  alone.    I  went  about  France  a  good  deal 

171 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

—  in  Normandy,  down  the  Loire,  in  the  unpro- 
mising parts  of  Picardy,  about  Fontainebleau  and 
across  country  to  Orleans  and  the  neighbourhood. 
At  home  I  wandered  about  the  Lakes  and  about 
Northumberland;  visited  cathedrals  and  seaports, 
watching  and  observing ;  I  sat  in  parlours  of  coun- 
try inns  and  listened.  The  talk  of  the  people,  their 
opinions  and  their  views,  amused  and  interested  me. 
At  the  time  I  had  no  thought  of  using  this  ma- 
terial, and  so  most  of  it  was  wasted ;  but  some 
remained  by  me. 

For  a  week-end  journey  I  sometimes  had  a  com- 
panion  in   the   person   of   S.    L .      He   was    a 

barrister  without  practice,  a  scholar  who  neither 
wrote  nor  lectured.  He  read  a  great  deal  and  had 
no  ambition  to  reproduce  his  learning ;  there  was 
no  man  of  my  acquaintance  who  had  a  wider  know- 
ledge, a  better  memory,  or  a  sounder  critical  taste. 
This  critical  taste,  indeed,  he  carried  into  everything; 
it  made  him  unhappy  if  his  steak  at  a  country  inn 
was  not  well  cooked  and  well  served,  and  on  the 
important  subject  of  port  wine  he  was  really  great. 
Except  when  he  was  on  one  of  these  journeys  he 
used  to  get  up  every  afternoon  at  half-past  one, 
breakfast  on  coffee  and  bread  and  jam  —  but  the 
jam  had  to  come  from  his  mother's  house  in  the 
country ;  at  dinner  he  worked  his  way  through 
the  wine-lists  either  of  club  or  tavern  and  always 
took  port  after  dinner ;  he  would  sit  in  my  cham- 
bers as  late  as  I  allowed  him,  and  he  used  to  go  to 
bed  habitually  at  four.     This  was  his  daily  life,  and 

172 


SIR      tVALTER     BESANT 

he  carried  it  on  with  the  utmost  regularity  till  his 
death,  which  happened  at  the  age  of  fifty-five. 

For  many  years  it  was  my  custom  to  go  for  a 
walk  in  midwinter.  My  friend  Guthrie  was  my 
companion  in  these  expeditions.  We  would  be 
away  three  or  four  days,  carrying  a  handbag  over 
the  shoulder,  taking  the  train  for  a  convenient  dis- 
tance out  of  town,  and  mapping  out  our  walk  be- 
forehand so  as  to  give  ourselves,  if  possible,  four 
hours  before  lunch  and  about  two  or  three  after 
lunch.  Thus  I  remember  a  walk  we  took  starting 
from  Newbury,  in  Wiltshire,  to  Marlborough,  and 
from  Marlborough  along  the  Wans  Dyke  to  Devi- 
zes ;  another  from  Bath  to  Glastonbury  by  way  of 
Radstock,  and  from  Glastonbury  to  Bridgewater; 
another  from  Penzance  to  Falmouth  by  way  of 
Helston ;  and  another  from  Newnham,  in  Glouces- 
tershire, to  Ross,  Monmouth,  Tintern,  and  Chep- 
stow —  an  excellent  walk.  The  exhilaration  of  such 
a  walk  when  the  weather  was  frosty  and  clear  cannot 
be  described;  the  only  objection  was  the  long  and 
deadly  dulness  of  the  evenings.  One  got  in  at 
about  five,  dinner  was  served  at  seven ;  what  was  to 
be  done  between  seven  and  ten  —  the  earliest  hour 
at  which  one  could  go  to  bed  ?  There  was  nothing 
for  it  but  the  smoking-room  and  the  local  company, 
or  the  billiard-room  and  the  local  funny  man. 

In  1873,  in  consequence  of  the  publication  of  The 
French  Humorists^,  I  received  an  invitation  to  write 
for  the  Saturday  Review.  I  contributed  "  middles  " 
—  i.e.,  essays  on  social  matters  —  to  this  paper,  not 

173 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

regularly,  but  occasionally,  when  a  good  subject 
came  to  me.  I  also  reviewed  a  little  for  them,  but 
not  much.  I  always  disliked  reviewing,  having  an 
invincible  dislike  to  "  slating "  an  author,  or  to 
"  log-rolling."  I  continued  to  write  for  the  paper 
till  its  change  of  hands  in  1894. 

In  1 87 1  I  brought  out  the  History  of  Jerusalem^ 
the  period  covered  being  from  the  siege  by  Titus 
to  modern  times.  Palmer  was  my  collahorateur. 
He  contributed  the  history  from  Moslem  sources 
which  had  never  before  been  searched  and  read  for 
the  purpose.  I  contributed  the  history  as  narrated 
in  the  Chronicles,  which  were  also  nearly  new  ma- 
terial. The  book  went  out  of  print,  but  the  sale 
of  the  whole  edition  showed  a  loss  !  For  many 
years  the  book  was  not  to  be  procured.  But  it 
was  never  dead.  At  last  the  publisher  consented 
to  issue  a  second  edition  subject  to  the  condition 
of  my  guarantee  of  a  sale  of  three  hundred  copies. 
To  prevent  any  possible  error  about  this  guarantee, 
I  simply  took  them  all  at  trade  price,  and  put  the 
book  in  the  lists  of  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund. 
The  second  edition  went  off  at  once,  and  a  third 
edition  followed.  At  the  same  time  I  took  over 
from  the  publisher  l^he  French  Humorists^  with  the 
intention  of  revising,  adding  to,  and  improving  it 
for  a  new  edition  should  the  opportunity  ever 
occur. 

In  1875  —  I  think  —  I  contributed  a  volume  to 
Blackwood's  Foreign  Classics  on  Rabelais.  I  also 
contributed  about  this  time  to  Blackwood's  Series 

174 


SIR      TVALTER     BESANT 

of  Foreign  Classics,  edited  by  Mrs.  Oliphant,  a 
volume  on  Rabelais.  I  had  a  little  passage  of 
arms  with  the  editor,  who  tried  to  insist  that 
Rabelais,  as  a  Franciscan  Friar,  had  to  go  about 
the  town  en  quete,  begging  for  the  fraternity.  She 
did  not  understand  that  long  before  his  time  the 
rule  had  been  crystallised  and  the  practice  and 
custom  of  the  Franciscans  modified.  The  begging 
of  the  house  simply  consisted  in  the  placing  of 
boxes  in  shops  and  public  places,  while  the  income 
of  the  brethren  was  chiefly  made  up  by  Church 
dues,  masses,  funerals,  and  bequests.  I  followed 
up  the  volume  with  a  volume  of  selections  from 
Rabelais  newly  translated.  I  found,  however,  that 
it  was  impossible  to  make  Rabelais  popular.  The 
allegorical  method  appeals  to  very  few,  unless  the 
allegory  is  so  simple  as  to  lie  quite  on  the  sur- 
face. I  wrote  also  a  few  articles  for  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica,  the  most  important  of  which  was  a  paper 
on  Froissart.  I  wonder  if  any  one  else  has  ever 
read  Froissart's  poems. 

In  1873  ^  joined  the  Savlle  Club,  then  full  of 
young  writers,  young  dons,  and  young  scientific 
men ;  but  for  some  time  I  hardly  used  the  club 
at  all  and  was  quite  unknown  to  the  members. 
Perhaps  to  live  so  retired  a  life  —  to  spend  the 
evenings  alone  in  solitary  chambers,  working  till 
eleven  o'clock  —  was  a  mistake.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  I  was  fated,  as  it  appeared,  about  this 
time  to  write  novels,  it  was  just  as  well  to  avoid 
the  narrowing  influences  of  the  club  smoking-room. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

After  my  marriage  the  club  smoking-room  was 
farther  off  than  ever,  except  on  Saturdays,  when  I 
began  to  attend  the  luncheon  party  and  to  sit  in 
the  circle  round  the  fire  afterwards ;  but  always 
as  an  occasional  guest,  never  as  one  of  the  two  or 
three  sets  of  writers  and  journalists  who  belonged 
to  that  circle.  There  was  generally  very  good  talk 
at  the  Savile :  sometimes  clever  talk,  sometimes 
amusing  talk  ;  one  always  came  away  pleased,  and 
often  with  new  light  on  different  subjects  and  new 
thoughts. 

Among  the  men  one  met  on  Saturdays  were 
Palmer,  always  bubbling  over  with  irrepressible 
mirth  —  a  school-boy  to  the  end ;  Charles  Leland 
(Hans  Breitmann),  full  of  experiences ;  Walter 
Herries  Pollock,  then  the  assistant  editor  of  the 
Saturday  Review ;  Gordon  Wigan,  always  ready  to 
personate  some  one  else  ;  Charles  Brookfield,  as 
fine  a  raconteur  as  his  father ;  Edmund  Gosse,  fast 
becoming  one  of  the  brightest  of  living  talkers ; 
Saintsbury,  solid  and  full  of  knowledge,  a  critic  to 
the  finger  tips,  whether  of  a  bottle  of  port,  or  a 
mutton  chop,  or  a  poet;  H.  E.  Watts,  formerly 
editor  of  the  Melbourne  ArguSy  and  translator  of  Don 
^ixote ;  Duffield  of  the  broken  nose,  who  also 
translated  Don  ^ixote ;  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, 
then  young,  and  as  singularly  handsome  as  he  was 
clever  and  attractive.  Many  other  of  my  friends 
and  acquaintances  joined  the  club  afterwards,  but 
these  are  the  members  most  associated  in  my 
memory  with   the  Saturday  afternoons. 

176 


SIR     fFJLTER     B  E  S  A  NT 

I  remember  two  Saturday  afternoons  especially. 
On  one  of  them  I  had  a  French  novel  in  my  pocket. 
I  had  just  bought  it  —  a  book  by  the  author  of 
Contes  a  Ninon.  The  circle  broke  up  early,  and  I 
began  to  read  the  novel.  I  read  it  till  it  was  time 
to  go  home  ;  I  read  it  in  the  train;  after  dinner  I 
read  it  all  the  evening.  Next  day,  being  Sunday, 
I  read  it  all  the  morning  and  all  the  afternoon  —  I 
finished  it  in  the  evening.  On  Monday,  with  the 
magic  and  the  excitement  of  the  story  still  upon 
me,  I  wrote  a  leading  article  on  the  Parisian  work- 
man as  presented  by  this  book.  I  took  it  to  the 
editor  of  the  Daily  News.  He  looked  it  through. 
"I  wish  I  could  take  it,"  he  said;  "but  it  is  too 
strong  —  too  strong."  I  dare  say  it  was  too  strong, 
for  the  book  was  U Assommoir;  but  I  Jiave  always 
regretted  that  the  article  did  not  appear.  The 
second  Saturday  afternoon  was  one  spent  in  reading 
the  proofs  of  an  unpublished  story.  James  Payn 
sent  it  to  me  asking  for  my  opinion.  The  book 
was  by  a  new  hand.  It  was  called  Vice  Versa. 
That  was  an  afternoon  to  stand  out  in  one's 
memory. 

In  1879-81  I  became  editor  of  a  series  of  biog- 
raphies called,  ambitiously,  the  New  Plutarch. 
Leland  gave  me  a  life  of  Abraham  Lincoln ;  Palmer 
a  life  of  the  Caliph  Haroun  al  Raschid;  Conder  a 
life  of  Judas  Maccabaeus;  and  Miss  Janet  Tucker 
a  life  of  Joan  of  Arc,  I  myself  wrote  a  life  of 
Coligny.     Rice  undertook  the  life  of  Whittington 

and  collected  certain  notes;  but  as  his  illness  pre- 
12  177 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 

vented  him  from  making  use  of  these,  I  took  them 
over  and  made  the  biography  a  peg  for  a  brief  and 
popular  study  of  mediaeval  London,  putting  Rice's 
name  on  the  title-page  in  acknowledgment  of  his 
notes — as  I  explained  in  the  preface.  The  series 
was  not  successful.  After  ten  years  or  so  I  man- 
aged to  get  my  two  volumes  into  my  own  hands 
again,  and  transferred  them  to  Messrs.  Chatto  & 
Windus,  where  they  are  still,  I  believe,  alive  and  in 
demand.  The  life  of  Coligny  gave  offence  to  High 
Church  people,  but  that  mattered  very  little.  One 
can  never  write  anything  honest  and  with  conviction 
without  offending  some  one.  I  am  always  pleased 
to  think  that  I  was  enabled  to  present  the  life  of 
this  great  man  to  English  readers. 

During  the  last  eighteen  years  or  so,  I  have  been 
chiefiy  occupied  with  fiction.  In  1885  or  there- 
abouts I  found  myself  unable  to  discharge  the  duties 
of  my  office  at  the  Palestine  Exploration  Fund, 
although  they  had  become  very  light.  I  had  prac- 
tically got  through  with  the  survey  of  Western 
Palestine  of  which  I  was  director,  and  my  office  was 
continually  crowded  with  editors  and  publishers  and 
visitors,  who  came  to  me  not  on  account  of  their 
interest  in  Palestine.  I  therefore  left  off  drawing 
the  salary.  This  left  me  free  to  come  and  go  as  I 
liked,  and  I  carried  on  the  correspondence.  But 
this  could  not  last  long.  The  cranks  who  once 
had  amused  me  now  wasted  my  time  and  exasper- 
ated me ;  I  had  no  patience  with  the  multitudes 
who  came  with  a  coin  or  a  lamp.      I  was  compelled 

178 


SIR      TF  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

to  give  it  up.  And  so  I  went  out  after  all  into  the 
open  without  any  prop  except  the  money  I  had 
made.  At  the  age  of  fifty,  with  a  big  bundle  of 
books  and  papers  behind  me,  I  turned  to  literature 
as  a  profession.  But  it  already  gave  me  an  income 
which  would  be  called  handsome  even  at  the  bar. 

In  1 89 1  I  produced  the  first  of  four  books  on 
London.  They  were  called  respectively  London^ 
Westminster,  South  London,  and  East  London.  I 
shall  talk  about  them  and  about  my  London  work 
generally  in  another  chapter.^ 

I  have  anticipated  events,  because  it  seemed  best 
to  keep  separate  the  history  of  my  career  as  a 
novelist. 

1  See  Chapter  XIV.  Sir  Walter  Besant  does  not,  however,  mention 
the  four  books  again. 


179 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 


Chapter  X 


THE   START   IN   FICTION:    CRITICS   AND 
CRITICASTERS 

ylBOUT  1868  there  was  a  somewhat  foolish 
/— %  custom  of  pubhshing  collections  of  short 
stories  in  Christmas  numbers  of  the  maga- 
zines. These  stories  were  very  poor  as  a  rule,  and 
they  were  strung  together  by  a  quite  needless  thread. 
Dickens,  for  instance,  had  his  Mugby  Junction^  the 
introduction  to  which  he  wrote  himself  Once  a 
Week,  of  course,  must  fall  in  with  the  fashion.  To 
the  Christmas  number  of  1868  I  contributed  a 
short  story  ;  to  that  of  1869  I  contributed  the  larger 
part.  It  was  called  "  Titania's  Farewell,"  and  de- 
scribed the  last  night  of  the  fairies  in  this  island. 
The  motif  was  not,  it  is  true,  original.  Corbett's 
"  Farewell  to  the  Fairies  "  belonged  to  the  seven- 
teenth century,  Wood's  "  Plea  for  the  Midsummer 
Fairies  "  to  the  nineteenth  ;  but  one  cannot  hope  to 
be  always  original.  The  subject  was  fresh  enough 
for  the  general  reader,  and  the  treatment  was  light, 
and  I  think  pleasing,  with  a  slight  tinge  of  sadness. 
All  kinds  of  bogies,  wraiths,  and  goblins  were  intro- 
duced, and  there  were  dances  and  songs.  In  a  word, 
I  believe  it  was  a  pretty  little  thing  —  at  all  events, 
it  found  many  friends.      It  was  published   anony- 

180 


SIR      JVJLTER      BESANT 

mously.  To  me  this  flimsy  trifle  became  of  the 
utmost  importance,  because  it  changed  the  whole 
current  of  my  life.  In  place  of  a  writer  of  "  stud- 
ies," "appreciations,"  and  the  lighter  kind  of  criti- 
cism, 1  became  a  novelist.  Nothing  could  have  been 
more  fortunate.  I  now  understand  that  there  is  no 
branch  of  the  literary  life  more  barren  and  dreary 
than  that  of  writing  notes  upon  poets  and  other 
writers  dead  and  gone.  I  have  seen  the  effect  of 
this  left  upon  so  many.  First,  everybody  can  do 
it,  well  or  ill ;  therefore  there  is  a  striving  for  some- 
thing distinctive,  resulting  in  extravagance,  exagger- 
ations, studied  obscurity,  the  pretence  of  seeing 
more  than  other  people  can  see  in  an  author,  the 
parade  of  an  inferior  writer  as  a  great  genius  ;  so  we 
have  the  revival  of  a  poet  deservedly  forgotten  — 
all  pour  reffet^  and  all  leading  directly  to  habitual  dis- 
honesty, sham,  and  the  estimation  of  form  above 
matter.  Indeed,  many  of  these  writers  of"  studies," 
after  a  few  years,  fail  to  understand  matter  or  to 
look  for  anything  but  form.  It  is  this  that  they 
look  for  and  this  alone  that  they  talk  about.  I  was 
rescued  from  their  unfortunate  fate  while  I  still 
clung  to  the  subject-matter  as  the  principal  and  most 
important  consideration.  In  an  essay  the  thought 
is  the  first  thing — the  message  which  the  writer 
has  to  communicate,  the  views  and  conclusions  of 
his  mind ;  the  style  comes  afterwards.  A  good 
essay  is  not  an  affair  of  adjectives  with  new  applica- 
tions, nor  of  strange  phrases,  nor  of  new  arrange- 
ments of  words.     At  the  same  time,  when  a  man 


AUTOBIOGRJPHT      OF 

has  a  thing  to  say,  he  must  study  how  to  present  it 
in  the  most  attractive  form  possible  for  him. 

Consider,  for  instance,  the  way  of  the  world  in  a 
picture  gallery.  The  crowd  go  round  the  rooms 
from  picture  to  picture  ;  they  stop  before  any  can- 
vas that  tells  a  story ;  they  study  the  story ;  they 
do  not  greatly  care  for,  nor  do  they  inquire  too 
closely  into,  the  method  of  telling  the  story  —  most 
of  them  never  ask  at  all  how  the  story  is  told  ;  they 
are  entirely  ignorant  about  grouping  and  drawing, 
about  light,  shadow,  colour,  and  harmony.  Pres- 
ently the  professed  critic  comes  along.  Then  we 
hear  the  art  jargon  ;  there  is  talk  of  "  values,"  of 
"middle  distance,"  and  all  the  rest  of  it ;  but  not  a 
word  of  instruction.  This  kind  of  critic  is  like  the 
man  who  writes  "  studies  "  and  "  appreciations  "  : 
he  has  developed  a  jargon.  If  we  are  lucky,  we 
may  meet  the  true  critic  who  knows  the  construc- 
tion of  a  picture,  and  can  divine  first  the  thought 
and  attempt  of  the  artist,  and  next  his  method,  and 
its  success  or  failure.  It  is  the  same  with  books 
and  their  critics.  The  difference  between  the  sham 
critic  and  the  real  critic  is  that  the  latter  shows  the 
reader  how  to  look  first  for  the  intention  of  the 
book,  and  next  how  to  examine  into  the  method 
employed  in  carrying  out  that  intention.  I  do  not 
think  that  I  was  born  to  be  a  true  critic,  and  by  the 
blessing  of  the  Lord  I  have  been  prevented  from  be- 
coming a  sham  critic.  In  the  world  of  letters,  I  find 
many  who  write  about  books  generously  and  with 
enthusiasm  —  these   are  the  young  writers  ;   I  find 


SIR      WALTER     BESANT 

many  who  write  jargon  —  they  are  mostly  the  older 
writers,  for  the  young  and  generous  spirits  degen- 
erate ;  and  I  find  a  few,  a  very  few,  whose  judgments 
are  lessons  both  to  the  author  and  the  reader.  These 
true  critics  are  never  spiteful ;  they  are  never 
"  smart  "  ;  they  are  never  derisive  ;  they  never  pre- 
tend to  be  indignant;  they  observe  courtesy  even 
in  condemnation  ;  the  writing  is  always  well-bred ; 
and  their  words  are  always  conclusive. 

For  my  own  part  I  have  always  belonged  to  the 
crowd  who  read  the  story  in  the  canvas  ;  and  this 
whether  I  am  studying  a  picture,  a  poem,  a  drama, 
or  a  novel.  It  is  the  story  that  I  look  for  first. 
When  I  have  read,  or  made  out,  the  story,  I  may 
perhaps  go  on  to  consider  how  it  is  told ;  perhaps  I 
am  quite  satisfied  with  having  read  the  story  —  in- 
deed, most  stories  are  not  worth  discussing  or  con- 
sidering. In  many  cases  I  put  the  matter  first  and 
the  form  afterwards.  The  true  critic  considers  the 
story  which  the  author  has  attempted  to  tell,  as  the 
first  point;  the  sham  critic  considers  the  language 
and  the  style  (which  is,  with  him,  a  fashion  of  the 
day),  and  goes  no  farther.  I  used  to  think  myself 
a  critic  when  I  was  only  a  sympathetic  listener 
easily  absorbed  in  the  story,  carried  out  of  myself 
by  the  art  of  the  novelist  or  the  poet,  whether  ap- 
parent or  concealed.  I  now  understand  my  limita- 
tions in  the  field  of  criticism,  and  I  am  continually 
grateful  for  the  accident  which  took  me  out  of  the 
ranks  of  reviewers  and  criticasters  and  placed  me  in 
the  company  of  the  story-tellers. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

It  ought  to  be  understood  that  a  true  critic  — 
one  who  is  jealous  for  both  the  form  and  the  matter, 
one  who  is  above  all  personal  considerations,  one 
who  is  not  a  "  slasher  "  and  a  "  slater,"  but  a  cold 
and  calm  judge  —  is  as  rare  as  a  true  poet,  and  as 
valuable.  Editors  do  not  understand  this.  They 
seem  to  make  no  effort  to  secure  the  true  critics ; 
they  allow  the  disappointed  failure,  the  "  slasher," 
and  the  "  slater  "  to  defile  their  columns  unchecked. 
There  are  not,  in  fact,  enough  true  critics  to  go 
round,  but  an  effort  should  be  made  by  the  younger 
men  to  imitate  their  methods.  I  believe  that  one 
can  count  on  ten  fingers  the  few  critics  whose  judg- 
ments are  lessons  of  instruction  to  writers  as  well  as 
readers,  who  take  broad  views  of  literary  work  and 
do  not  judge  a  writer  by  a  fault  of  taste  here,  or  a 
wrong  date  there,  or  an  error  of  opinion,  or  a  mis- 
take in  fact. 

I  was  not,  I  say,  by  gift  of  nature  one  of  this 
small  company.  Had  I  continued  in  the  line  which 
I  had  at  first  designed,  I  should  certainly  have  be- 
longed before  long  to  that  large  company  of  writers 
who  are  always  ready  with  a  paper  on  any  literary 
subject  which  you  like  to  name;  who  do  odd  jobs 
for  publishers  ;  who  are  made  men  when  they  can 
get  a  "study  "  of  a  writer  into  a  series;  and  who  drag 
down — -down  —  down — every  magazine  which  gives 
them  free  access.  In  a  word,  there  were  two  lines 
open  to  me:  I  might  continue  as  secretary  of  a  society 
and  so  obtain  a  livelihood,  doing  literary  work  out- 
side the  daily  hours  of  routine  —  always  in  bachelor 

184 


SIR      IV  J  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

chambers,  and  becoming  every  year  more  of  a  her- 
mit; or  I  might  give  up  secretarial  work  and  live 
upon  literature  —  somehow,  earning  a  precarious 
income,  a  hack  and  a  dependent,  soured,  poor,  dis- 
appointed, and  bitter.  There  are  many  such  un- 
fortunates about.  They  pretend  to  be  leaders ; 
they  give  themselves  airs  of  superiority ;  they  are 
bitter  and  ungenerous  reviewers ;  their  lot  is  still 
the  lot  of  Grub  Street ;  they  are,  as  always,  the 
children  of  Gibeon  who  hew  wood  and  draw  water 
and  do  hack  work  for  their  employers,  for  the  pay 
of  a  solicitor's  clerk.  That  I  was  spared  from 
taking  either  of  these  two  obvious  lines  was  greatly 
due  to  the  writing  and  publishing  of  "  Titania's 
Farewell." 

For  after  the  appearance  of  "  Titania's  Farewell," 
Rice  came  to  me  with  a  proposal.  It  was  that  I 
would  collaborate  with  him  in  writing  a  novel,  the 
plot  of  which  had  already  been  drawn  out  in  the 
rough  by  himself.  His  plot  was  simply  the  story 
of  the  Prodigal  Son  with  variations.  The  wanderer 
was  to  return  apparently  repentant,  in  reality  re- 
solved upon  getting  out  of  the  old  man  all  that  he 
could  secure.  The  father  was  to  be  a  rich  miser,  a 
banker  in  a  country  town.  The  idea  seemed  to 
offer  great  possibilities  in  the  way  of  incident  and 
character.  In  fact,  the  more  one  looked  at  it,  the 
more  these  possibilities  extended.  Of  course  the 
Prodigal  would  have  a  past  to  hamper  him  ;  one 
past  belonging  to  the  time  before  he  left  the  pater- 
nal home,  and  another  belonging  to  his  adventurous 

185 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

career  about  the  world.  I  accepted  the  proposal. 
I  set  to  work  with  a  will,  and  before  long  our  Prodi- 
gal was  working  out  his  later  developments  in  the 
columns  of  Once  a  Week.  The  plot,  naturally,  was 
modified.  The  Prodigal  grew  more  human ;  he 
became  softened ;  but  the  past  remained  with  him 
to  hamper  him  and  to  drag  him  down. 

When  it  came  to  reproducing  the  story  as  a 
volume.  Rice  proposed  that  we  should  print  it  and 
give  it  to  a  publisher  as  a  commission  book.  There 
was  no  doubt  about  its  success  from  the  first.  As  a 
pecuniary  speculation  it  was  as  successful  as  could 
be  expected  in  those  days,  when  half-a-dozen  novel- 
ists commanded  a  circulation  in  three-volume  forms 
of  twelve  hundred  or  so  ;  and  the  next  dozen  or  so 
were  lucky  if  they  got  rid  of  six  hundred  copies  of 
their  works.  I  do  not  think  that  my  own  share 
of  the  proceeds,  from  the  beginning  to  the  end, 
of  Ready  Money  Mortiboy  reached  more  than  £,100 
or  /250. 

I  have  often  been  asked  to  explain  the  method  of 
collaboration  adopted  by  Rice  and  myself.  The 
results  were  certainly  satisfactory  so  far  as  popularity 
was  concerned,  a  fact  which  goes  a  long  way  to  ex- 
plaining this  curiosity,  no  other  literary  collaboration 
having  been  comparable,  in  this  country,  with  ours 
for  success.  My  answer  to  the  question  was  always 
the  same.  It  is  impossible  that  I  should  offer  any 
explanation  or  give  any  account  of  this  method,  see- 
ing that  my  collaborateur  has  been  dead  since  the 
year  1882.      It   is  enough  to  state  that  we  worked 

186 


SIR      WALTER     BESANT 

without  disagreement ;  that  there  was  never  any 
partnership  between  us  in  the  ordinary  sense  of  the 
word;  but  that  the  collaboration  went  on  from  one 
story  to  another  always  without  any  binding  condi- 
tions, always  liable  to  be  discontinued ;  while  each 
man  carried  on  his  own  independent  literary  work, 
and  was  free  to  write  fiction,  if  he  pleased,  by  him- 
self. 

The  collaboration  had  its  advantages ;  among 
others,  that  of  freeing  me,  for  my  part,  from  the 
worry  of  business  arrangements.  I  am,  and  always 
have  been,  extremely  averse  from  making  terms  and 
arrangements  for  myself.  At  the  same  time,  if  I 
were  asked  for  my  opinion  as  to  collaboration  in 
fiction,  it  would  be  decidedly  against  it.  I  say  this 
without  the  least  desire  to  depreciate  the  literary 
ability  of  my  friend  and  collaborateur.  The  arrange- 
ment lasted  for  ten  years  and  resulted  in  as  many 
successful  novels.  I  only  mean  that,  after  all,  an 
artist  must  necessarily  stand  alone.  If  two  men 
work  together,  the  result  must  inevitably  bear  the 
appearance  of  one  man's  work  ;  the  style  must  be 
the  same  throughout ;  the  two  men  must  be  rolled 
into  one  ;  each  must  be  loyal  to  the  other;  neither 
can  be  held  responsible  for  plot,  incident,  character, 
or  dialogue.  There  will  come  a  time  when  both 
men  fret  under  the  condition ;  when  each  desires, 
but  is  not  able,  to  enjoy  the  reputation  of  his  own 
good  work  ;  and  feels,  with  the  jealousy  natural  to 
an  artist,  irritated  by  the  loss  of  half  of  himself  and 
ready  to  accept  the  responsibility  of  failure  in  order 

187 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

to  make  sure  of  the  meed  of  success.  Now  that 
Rice  is  dead  it  is  impossible  for  me  to  lay  hands 
upon  any  passage  or  page  and  to  say  "  This  belongs 
to  Rice  —  this  is  mine."  The  collaboration  would 
have  broken  down,  I  believe,  amicably.  It  would 
have  been  far  better  if  it  had  broken  down  five  years 
before  the  death  of  Rice,  so  that  he  might  have 
achieved  what  has  been  granted  to  myself —  an 
independent  literary  position. 

There  are,  however,  some  parts  in  our  joint  work 
which,  without  injustice  to  him  or  to  myself,  I  may 
fairly  assign  to  one  or  the  other.  In  Ready  Money 
Mortiboy,  as  I  have  stated,  the  plot  and  the  origin 
and  the  conception  were  his ;  the  whole  of  the  part 
concerned  with  the  country  town  and  the  bank  is 
his.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  story  called  By 
Celia  s  Arbour  the  whole  of  the  local  part,  that 
which  belongs  to  Portsmouth,  is  my  own.  I  was 
born  in  the  place,  which  Rice  never,  to  my  know- 
ledge, even  saw.  On  the  other  hand,  there  are  many 
parts  of  all  the  stories.  In  which  our  rambles  about 
London,  and  conversations  over  these  rambles,  sug- 
gested situations,  plots,  and  characters,  which  it 
would  be  impossible  to  assign  to  either.  Of  'The 
Golden  Butterfly^  the  origin  which  has  already  been 
plainly  stated  in  certain  introductions  may  be  re- 
peated. The  thing  itself — the  Golden  Butterfly  — 
was  seen  by  my  brother,  Mr.  Edgar  Besant,  in  Sac- 
ramento, California.  He  told  me  about  it,  and  it 
suggested  possibilities.  Rice  at  the  same  time  had 
thought  of  a  story  of  a  Canadian  who  "  struck  ile," 


SIR      fF  J  LTER      B  ES  A  NT 

became  a  millionaire,  created  a  town,  and  was  there 
ruined,  town  and  all,  by  the  drying  up  of  the  supply. 
He  also  found  the  "  fighting  editor."  The  twins 
were  a  reminiscence,  not  an  invention,  of  my  own. 
The  rest,  as  any  novelist  will  understand,  was  simply 
the  construction  of  a  novel  with  these  materials  as 
its  basis.  This  story  appeared  in  the  year  1876,  a 
quarter  of  a  century  ago.  Like  Ready  Money  Mor- 
tiboy^  it  has  never  ceased  to  sell :  last  year  the 
publishers — now  the  proprietors  —  brought  out  an 
edition  at  sixpence.  They  sold  the  whole —  1 50,000 
copies  —  in  three  weeks.  I  repeat  that  I  desire  to 
suggest  nothing  that  might  seem  to  lessen  the  work 
of  Rice  in  the  collaboration,  while,  both  for  his 
sake  and  my  own,  I  regret  that  it  ever  went  beyond 
I'he  Golden  Butterfly^  which  was  quite  the  most  suc- 
cessful of  the  joint  novels.  The  continued  popu- 
larity of  this  and  one  or  two  others  of  my  novels 
has  always  been  the  most  gratifying  circumstance  in 
my  literary  career. 

In  1876  Rice  and  I  began  to  write  the  Christmas 
number  for  All  the  Tear  Rounds  which  was  con- 
tinued until  Rice's  death  in  1882,  and  after  that  by 
myself  till  1887.  The  stories  which  formed  these 
Christmas  numbers  were  in  length  very  nearly  as 
long  as  many  stories  now  produced  at  six  shillings. 
Some  of  them  were  very  popular;  all  of  them  gave 
me  the  greatest  pleasure  possible  in  writing,  partly 
because  they  were  short  enough  to  turn  on  a  single 
motif  with  a  small  number  of  characters.  The 
three-volume  novel,  on  the  other  hand,  was  three 

189 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

times  the  length  of  the  Christmas  number  and  pre- 
sented much  greater  constructive  difficulties.  The 
ignorant  reviewer  used  to  talk  of  the  "  Procrus- 
tean "  length  of  the  three-volume  novel.  Of  course 
there  was  no  more  uniformity  of  length  about  the 
three-volume  novel  than  exists  now  with  the  one- 
volume.  The  three-volume  novel,  in  fact,  varied 
in  length,  say,  from  100,000  words  to  300,000 
words.  It  was  thought  to  be  giving  short  measure 
to  present  the  former  length,  but  the  longer  might 
tax  the  energies  of  the  reader  too  much. 

The  ignorant  reviewer  has  also,  on  many  occa- 
sions, waxed  eloquent  over  the  estimate  of  length  by 
so  many  words.  He  imagines  that  the  words  are 
carefully  counted  and  that  the  writer  is  bound  not 
to  exceed  a  certain  fixed  number  and  not  to  offer  a 
story  less  than  that  number.  Now,  since  most 
novels  of  repute  appear  first  as  serials,  one  is  bound 
to  consider  the  length  of  each  instalment,  and  there 
is  no  more  ready  way  of  estimating  the  length  than 
by  the  number  of  words.  I  have  written  serials 
for  a  great  many  publications.  Let  me  take  one, 
the  Illustrated  London  News.  Here  the  only  condi- 
tion imposed  on  the  author  was  that  the  story  was 
to  run  for  twenty-six  weeks.  This  meant  an  average 
length  of  so  many  columns.  Translated  into  num- 
bers, it  meant  about  6,000  words  for  each  instalment. 
But  I  am  quite  certain  that  the  editor  of  the  Illus- 
trated London  News  never  counted  the  words ;  if 
the  chapter  was  a  few  hundred  words  over  or  under 
the    average    length,    it    mattered    nothing.     As    I 

190 


SIR      PFJLTER     BESANT 

always  write  on  paper  of  the  same  size  and  know 
very  approximately  the  number  of  words  that  fill 
one  page,  I  have  never  had  any  difficulty  in  dividing 
the  chapters  into  tolerably  equal  instalments. 

Formerly,  the  writer  reckoned  by  sheets ;  still  he 
must  have  learned  how  many  words  go  to  a  sheet ; 
or  by  pages,  but  still  he  must  have  learned  how 
many  words  go  to  a  page ;  or  by  columns,  but  with 
the  same  necessity.  It  is  surely  better  to  begin  at 
once  with  the  number  of  words,  always  under- 
standing that  there  is  not,  as  the  ignorant  reviewer 
would  insist,  a  yard  measure  or  a  two-foot  rule  in- 
troduced or  any  rigid  condition  about  the  number 
of  words. 

Let  me  note  one  or  two  other  points  on  which 
the  reviewer  often  betrays  his  ignorance.  The  Spec- 
tator is  in  most  respects  a  well-conducted  and  well- 
informed  journal.  I  saw  in  the  Spectator  some  time 
ago  a  notice  of  a  certain  recently  deceased  writer 
who,  the  reviewer  pointed  out,  had  most  unfortu- 
nately brought  out  his  novels  in  serial  form,  so  that 
he  was  compelled  to  end  each  instalment  with  a  sen- 
sational incident,  a  circumstance  which  spoiled  his 
work.  One  would  really  think  that  a  person  allowed 
to  write  for  the  Spectator  would  have  known  better 
than  to  talk  such  rubbish ;  he  or  she  would  at  least, 
one  would  think,  have  sufficient  knowledge  of  the 
history  of  fiction  to  know  that  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
Trollope,  George  Eliot,  Charles  Reade,  Wilkle 
Collins,  George  Meredith,  William  Black,  Black- 
more,   Hardy  —  everybody  of  note  among  modern 

191 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

novelists  —  brought  out  their  novels  in  serial  form. 
Yet  this  fact  has  not  spoiled  their  work.  I  have,  if 
that  affects  the  question,  brought  out  nearly  all  my 
novels  in  serial  form  first.  And  I  may  safely  aver 
that  I  have  never  felt,  recognised,  or  understood 
that  there  was  the  least  necessity  for  ending  an  in- 
stalment with  an  incident.  There  is,  however,  no 
end  to  the  rubbish — mostly  ignorant,  partly  malevo- 
lent—  that  is  written  and  published  about  novels. 
In  the  same  paper,  for  instance,  I  found  the  other 
day  an  objection  to  one  of  my  characters  on  the 
ground  that  it  was  not  a  "  transcript  from  nature  "  ! 
Therefore,  if  you  please,  no  novelist  has  a  right  to 
present  a  character  which  is  not  a  portrait !  Why, 
the  characters  of  the  first  and  best  novelists  are 
never  "  transcripts "  from  nature.  They  are  sug- 
gested by  certain  points,  often  unsuspected  points, 
in  real  characters.  That  to  which  my  reviewer 
objected  was  a  character  suited  to  the  actual  times, 
insomuch  as  he  might  very  well  exist,  and  perhaps 
does  exist.  No  impossibility  was  presented.  But 
he  was  certainly  not  a  "  transcript  from  nature." 

The  ignorant  and  prejudiced  reviewer  of  novels 
is  not  perhaps  so  much  to  blame  as  the  editor  of 
the  paper  where  the  review  appears,  for  so  long  as 
the  editor  expects  his  reviewer  to  pronounce  a 
judgment  upon  a  dozen  novels  every  week,  so  long 
will  those  judgments  be  either  miserably  inadequate 
or  dishonest.  I  cannot  conceive  any  kind  of  work 
more  demoralising  to  a  writer  than  that  of  reviewing 
a  dozen  novels  every  week  in,  say,  two  columns. 

192 


SIR      PF  J  L  T  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

The  inevitable  result  is  that  he  loses  all  sense  of 
proportion  ;  one  novel  becomes  as  much  worth 
mentioning  as  another  ;  George  Meredith  —  as  actu- 
ally happened  once  in  a  "literary"  journal  —  may 
be  dismissed  in  a  paragraph  between  the  works  of 
two  schoolgirls.  The  reviewer,  after  a  short  course 
of  this  kind  of  work,  loses  the  power  of  judgment; 
he  scamps  the  reading  so  persistently  that  he  be- 
comes unable  to  read  ;  he  makes  an  effort  to  get  at 
something  like  the  story,  which  he  proceeds  to  tell 
baldly  and  badly ;  appreciation  is  impossible  where 
there  has  been  no  real  reading :  he  cannot  praise 
because  praise  is  a  definite  thing  which,  unless  it  is 
general  and  meaningless,  must  be  based  on  actual 
reading ;  but  he  can  depreciate.  Sometimes,  of 
course,  in  his  haste,  he  makes  dire  blunders.  I 
have  known  many  such  cases..  Thus,  a  novel 
praised  to  the  skies  one  week  was  slated  pitilessly, 
a  few  weeks  later,  in  the  same  weekly  1  I  remember 
once  in  the  Athenaeum  a  notice  of  a  novel  of  my  own. 
The  book  was  dismissed  in  eight  or  ten  lines,  every 
one  of  which  contained  a  separate  misstatement 
concerning  the  story.  It  was,  I  remember,  stated 
that  the  whole  action  of  the  book  took  place  in  a 
banker's  office.  There  was  no  mention  of  such  a 
thing  as  a  bank  or  a  banker  in  the  whole  book. 

It  is  to  me,  I  confess,  a  continual  subject  of 
wonder  that  an  editor  who  allows  books  to  be 
noticed  in  batches  —  ten  or  a  dozen  every  week  — 
does  not  understand  that  by  doing  so  he  actually 
throws  away  the  whole  weight  of  his  paper  as  a 
13  193 


A  U  T  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  T      OF 

critical  organ  —  the  whole  weight  of  his  authority. 
Surely  it  would  be  better,  in  the  long  run,  to  pre- 
serve the  character  of  a  paper  for  fair,  dispassionate, 
and  competent  criticism,  than,  for  the  sake  of  pleas- 
ing publishers  (who  are  wholly  indifferent  to  criti- 
cism and  care  for  nothing  at  all  but  a  line  of  praise 
that  they  can  quote),  to  issue  miserable  little  para- 
graphs, whose  praise  carries  no  conviction  —  because 
it  is  and  must  be,  so  long  as  the  present  plan  of 
reviewing  by  batches  continues,  couched  in  general 
terms — and  whose  condemnation  can  produce  no 
effect  upon  the  mind  of  the  reader.  Yet,  in  one 
paper  after  another,  the  suicidal  policy  is  preserved. 
It  must  be  remembered  that  these  paragraphs  are 
simply  passed  over  by  the  majority  of  readers.  It  is 
impossible,  week  after  week,  to  persuade  them  that 
the  batch  of  books  so  noticed  can  have  been  read. 

Another  point  in  which  the  ordinary  editor  is 
blameworthy  is  that  he  takes  no  care  to  keep  out 
of  his  paper  the  personal  element.  He  allows  the 
log-roller  to  praise  his  own  friends  and  the  spiteful 
and  envious  failure  to  abuse  his  enemies.  This 
carelessness  is  so  common  in  English  journalism 
that  one  knows  beforehand,  when  certain  books  ap- 
pear, the  organs  in  which  they  will  be  praised  or 
assailed.  Surely,  for  the  credit  of  his  paper,  an 
editor  might  at  least  ascertain,  beforehand,  that  a 
critic  is  neither  the  friend  nor  the  enemy  of  the 
author.  In  the  New  York  Critic,  I  have  been 
told,  every  reviewer  Is  on  his  honour  not  to  under- 
take a  criticism  of  the  work  of  a  personal  friend  or 

194 


SIR      U^ALTER      BESANT 

a  personal  enemy.  We  have  many  things  to  learn 
from  America.  The  maintenance  of  the  honour 
and  the  reputation  and  the  authority  of  the  critical 
columns  of  our  journals  is  one  of  these  things. 

It  is,  of  course,  quite  impossible  for  any  journal 
to  deal  with  all  the  books  that  appear  —  the  trashy 
novels  especially.  Surely  a  review  should  be  a  dis- 
tinction for  the  author  and  an  opportunity  for  the 
critic.  Why  should  not  a  responsible  paper  select  one 
or  two  novels  a  week,  as  worthy,  not  of  a  paragraph 
among  a  batch  of  other  paragraphs,  but  of  a  serious 
review  by  some  one  who  is  competent  to  speak  of  a 
work  of  art  ?  There  are  certainly  not  a  hundred 
novels  in  the  year  which  are  really  so  worthy  ;  and 
the  judgment,  calmly  considered,  by  a  serious  and 
educated  critic  should  not  only  be  of  service  to  the 
author  and  to  the  book,  but  it  would  be  instructive 
to  the  reader,  who  has  for  the  most  part  studied 
no  canons  of  criticism  and  formed  consciously  no 
literary  standards.  But  the  reviewer  must  be  seri- 
ous and  educated.  He  must  know  what  the  canons 
of  criticism  mean ;  he  must  be  trustworthy ;  he 
must  not  be  the  hack  who  rolls  the  log  for  his 
friend  and  "  slates  "  his  enemies ;  he  must  be,  in 
a  word,  a  man  of  honour.  Should  there,  then,  be 
no  criticism  of  bad  books  ?  Assuredly.  It  is  a 
foolish  waste  of  time  and  space  to  "slate"  a  poor 
little  weakling  which  will  never  be  presented  to  the 
public  except  in  a  seaside  circulating  library,  made 
up  of  "  remainders."  But  in  the  case  of  a  bad 
book,  or  a  mischievous  book,  or  a  book  which  has 

I9S 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

succeeded  and  yet  ought  not  to  have  succeeded,  it 
is  the  duty  of  the  critic  to  inform  and  instruct  the 
reader  as  to  the  true  character  and  tendencies  of 
this  book.  This  he  can  very  well  do,  if  he  is  him- 
self a  gentleman  as  well  as  a  scholar,  in  the  language 
and  the  manner  of  courtesy  and  politeness. 

Let  me  return  to  my  subject.  The  collaboration 
between  Rice  and  myself  lasted  for  one  book  after 
another  —  there  was  never  any  binding  agreement, 
contract,  or  partnership  —  for  about  ten  years. 
During  this  time  we  produced  three  highly  success- 
ful novels,  viz..  Ready  Money  Mortiboy^  The  Golden 
Butterfly^  and  l^he  Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,  and  others 
—  My  Little  Girl,  By  Celias  Arbour ,  'This  Son  of 
Vulcan,  With  Harp  and  Crown,  The  Monks  of  The- 
lema.  The  Seamy  Side,  and  two  or  three  volumes 
of  short  stories,  including  The  Case  of  Mr.  Lucraft, 
all  of  which  did  very  well  and  made  friends  for  the 
writers.  The  method  of  publication  pursued  was 
simple.  The  novel  or  the  story  first  appeared  in  a 
magazine  or  journal ;  it  was  then  published  in 
three-volume  form  ;  after  a  year  or  so  it  came  out 
in  a  single  volume  at  jj.  6^.  ;  and  finally  as  a 
"  yellow-back  "   at  is. 

I  think,  trying  to  put  myself  outside  these  novels, 
that  they  are  really  a  collection  with  which  one  may 
reasonably  be  satisfied.  The  book  that  I  like  best 
of  them  all  is  The  Chaplain  of  the  Fleet.  It  was  the 
first  of  my  eighteenth-century  novels,  and  perhaps 
the  best.  The  situations,  the  plot,  the  characters, 
all  seem  to  me,  if  I   may  speak  in  praise  of  myself, 

196 


SIR      IFALTER     BESANT 

original  and  striking.  It  was  a  subject  which  lent 
itself  to  firm  and  vigorous  drawing.  I  am,  in  fact, 
more  and  more  convinced  that  the  first  and  most 
important  thing  is  to  have  a  clear  story  with  strong 
characters.  It  was  impossible  that  reviewers  could 
be  more  appreciative  than  those  who  reviewed  this 
series  of  novels.  The  collaboration  lasted  off  and 
on  for  ten  years.     Then  it  came  to  an  end. 

Early  in  1881  Rice  was  attacked  by  an  illness, 
for  which  he  came  to  town,  thinking  that  a  week  or 
two  of  rest  and  treatment  would  set  him  right.  He 
stayed  in  town  for  six  weeks  ;  he  then  went  home 
and  reported  himself  in  a  fair  way  of  recovery. 
But  then  followed  symptoms  which  were  persistent 
and  unaccountable  ;  he  could  not  eat  anything  with- 
out suffering  dire  pains  ;  he  tried  oysters,  chopped 
up  raw  beef,  all  kinds  of  things.  Then  the  pains 
vanished  ;  he  even  thought  himself  quite  recovered  ; 
he  went  for  a  week  or  two  to  Dunquerque  in 
August.  On  his  return  the  symptoms  reappeared. 
After  lingering  for  six  months  in  great  suffering,  he 
died  in  April  1882  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine;  the 
cause  was  a  cancer  in  the  throat. 


197 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT     OF 


Chapter  XI 

THE   NOVELIST    WITH  A  FREE  HAND 

MY  life  between  1882  and  1900  is  a  simple 
chronicle  of  work  done.  Perhaps  it  may 
be  of  no  interest  to  my  readers.  In  that 
case  let  the  chapter  be  omitted,  because  it  is  purely 
personal.  During  this  period  my  beard  grew  grey  ; 
I  advanced  from  forty-six  to  sixty-four ;  from 
middle  age  I  became  old ;  but  I  never  ceased  to 
rejoice  in  my  work;  to  find  every  novel  —  there 
was  one  a  year  —  the  most  delightful  I  had  ever 
written  ;  to  fall  in  love  with  my  heroine ;  to  ad- 
mire my  young  men  of  virtue ;  and  to  desire,  above 
all  things,  that  my  villain  should  reap  the  fruit  of 
his  iniquities.  Thus  are  we  made.  When  villainies 
are  exposed,  we  desire  nothing  so  much  as  the  per- 
former's punishment ;  no  punishment  can  be  too 
severe  for  so  great  a  villain  ;  we  burn  to  see  him 
scourged.  Yet  we  never  wax  in  the  least  indignant 
over  our  own  meannesses  and  frailties  —  call  them 
not  villainies,  though  their  fruits  may  be  as  poison- 
ous as  the  monstrous  growths  that  follow  the  crimes 
of  fiction. 

Eighteen  novels  in  eighteen  years  !  It  seems  a 
long  list ;  how  can  one  write  so  much  and  yet  sur- 
vive ?      My  friends,  may    I   ask  why  a  painter  is 

198 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

allowed  to  produce  a  couple  of  pictures  and  more 
every  year  and  no  one  cries  out  upon  him  for  his 
haste  in  production  ;  yet  if  a  story-teller  gives  to 
the  world  a  novel  every  year,  the  criticaster  yaps  at 
his  heels  and  asks  all  the  world  to  observe  the  haste 
which  the  novelist  makes  to  get  rich.  Poor  novel- 
ist I  It  is  not  often,  indeed,  that  he  does  get  rich. 
In  my  own  case  I  was  endowed  by  nature  with  one 
quality  which,  I  am  sure,  I  may  proclaim  without 
boasting.  It  is  that  of  untiring  industry.  It  is  no 
merit  in  me  to  work  continuously.  I  am  not  happy 
when  I  am  not  working.  I  cannot  waste  the  after- 
noon in  a  club  smoking-room  ;  nor  can  I  waste  two 
hours  before  dinner  in  a  club  library ;  nor  can  I 
waste  a  whole  morning  pottering  about  a  garden  ; 
and  in  the  evening,  after  dinner,  I  am  fain  to  repair 
to  my  study,  there  to  look  over  proofs,  hunt  up 
points,  and  arrange  for  the  next  day's  work.  Again, 
when  I  have  fiction  in  hand  I  cannot  do  any  good 
with  it  for  more  than  three  or  four  hours  a  day  — 
say  from  nine  till  half-past  twelve.  In  the  afternoon 
I  must  work  at  other  things.  What  those  things 
have  been,  I  will  speak  of  presently. 

I  find  that,  on  an  average,  a  novel  has  taken  me 
about  eight  or  ten  months  from  the  commencement 
to  the  end.  If  you  turn  this  statement  into  a  little 
sum  in  arithmetic,  you  will  find  that  it  means  about 
a  thousand  words  a  day.  Do  not,  however,  imagine 
that  I  write  a  thousand  words  a  day.  Not  at  all. 
My  method  (again  advising  readers  not  interested 
in   this   confession   to  go   on  to   the  next  chapter) 

199 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

always  has  been  the  same.  The  central  motif  of 
the  story  is  first  settled  and  decided  upon.  It 
should  be  a  plain,  clear,  and  intelligible  motif —  one 
which  all  the  world  can  understand.  Round  this 
theme  has  to  be  grouped  a  collection  of  characters 
whose  actions,  conversations,  and  motives  form  a 
clear  and  consistent  story  while  they  supply  views 
of  life,  pictures  of  life,  and  illustrations  of  life.  It 
is  obvious  that  to  find  these  characters  is  the  great 
difficulty  ;  it  is  obvious  that  one  may  easily  fall 
into  mistakes  and  decide  upon  characters  without 
much  interest  to  the  reader.  Now  the  writer  does 
not  understand  this  until  too  late.  I  could  name 
one  of  my  stories  where  the  central  theme  was  very 
good  and  should  have  been  striking,  but  the  tale 
was  marred  by  the  lack  of  interest  in  the  principal 
character. 

However,  the  motif  the  story,  and  the  characters 
having  been  decided  upon,  the  next  step  is  the  pre- 
sentation, which  involves  practice  and  study  in  the 
art  of  construction.  I  would  not  insist  too  strongly 
on  the  study  required  for  the  construction  of  a 
story,  because  if  an  aspirant  has  not  the  gift,  no 
study  will  endow  him  with  it.  But  he  should  cer- 
tainly pay  great  attention  at  the  outset.  Above  all, 
he  should  aim  at  presenting  his  situations  with  a 
view  to  dramatic  effect;  not,  that  is,  to  let  down  the 
curtain  at  the  end  of  a  chapter  upon  a  tableau^  but 
to  lead  up  to  the  situation  dramatically,  to  present 
it  dramatically,  and  to  group  his  characters,  so  to 
speak,    dramatically.      He  should  also  avoid   long 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

descriptions  of  character ;  very  few  writers  can  do 
these  well ;  it  is  best  for  the  ordinary  novelist  to 
make  his  characters  describe  themselves  in  dialogue. 
This  is  easy,  provided  that  the  writer  has  got  a  clear 
grip  of  each  character  and  can  make  him  talk,  with- 
out effort,  up  to  his  character.  He  will,  of  course, 
have  an  eye  to  proportion.  It  is  amazing  to  find 
how  many  novels  are  ruined  for  want  of  due  pro- 
portion between  the  parts,  so  that  the  beginning 
overshadows  the  end,  or  the  end  is  out  of  harmony 
with  the  beginning. 

For  my  own  part,  I  proceed,  after  the  prelimina- 
ries, which  generally  take  three  weeks  or  a  month 
of  irritating  experiment,  failure,  and  patient  trying 
over  and  over  again,  to  write  at  headlong  speed  the 
first  two  or  three  chapters.  These  I  lay  aside  for  a 
few  days  and  then  take  them  up  again ;  the  heat  of 
composition  is  over  and  one  can  then  estimate  in 
cold  blood  what  the  thing  means  and  how  it  pro- 
mises. In  any  case,  it  has  all  to  be  written  over 
again :  the  first  draft  is  chaotic ;  the  dialogue  is 
only  suggested ;  the  situations  are  slurred ;  things 
irrelevant  or  of  no  consequence  are  introduced. 
Then  I  set  to  work  to  rewrite,  to  correct,  and  to 
expand.  Very  often  the  first  rough  chapter  becomes 
an  introduction,  followed  by  two  or  three  chapters 
which  begin  the  story.  At  the  same  time  I  go  on 
to  another  rough  draft  of  future  chapters.  So  the 
novel  is  constructed  much  on  the  principle  of  a 
tunnel,  in  which  the  rough  boring  and  blasting  goes 
on  ahead,   while  the  completion  of  the  work  slowly 

20I 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

follows.  After  a  little  there  is  no  longer  the  least 
trouble  about  quantity  of  material ;  it  becomes 
solely  a  question  of  selection  ;  the  characters  are  all 
alive  and  they  are  working  out  the  story  in  their 
own  way  —  there  are  sometimes  a  dozen  situations 
from  which  one  only  can  be  chosen  —  and  their  talk 
is  incessant  and,  for  the  most  part,  wide  of  the  mark 
—  that  is  to  say,  it  interests  them  but  it  does  not 
advance  the  story.  And  so  the  time  passes  ;  the 
summer  follows  the  spring  ;  the  novelist  is  absorbed 
almost  every  day  for  three  or  four  hours  with  his 
work.  Unless  he  is  working  at  other  things  he 
lives  in  a  dream  ;  he  does  not  want  to  talk  much  ; 
he  does  not  want  society ;  he  wants  only  to  be  left 
alone.  To  dream  away  one's  life  is  pleasant ;  but 
alas  !  no  one  knows  how  swiftly  the  time  passes  in 
a  dream.  For  thirty  years  I  have  been  dreaming 
during  the  greater  part  of  every  year.  What  should 
I  have  done  had  it  not  been  for  this  pageant  of 
Dreamland,  which  has  kept  me  perfectly  happy, 
though  sometimes  careless  and  oblivious  of  the 
outer  world  ? 

Perhaps  it  is  superfluous  to  describe  the  methods 
of  my  work  ;  as  I  said  before,  my  readers  may  pass 
over  this  chapter ;  it  may,  however,  be  of  some  use 
to  young  aspirants  to  know  how  a  craftsman  in 
their  art  worked  —  may  I  add  ?  —  non  sine  gloria, 
not  without  a  certain   measure  of  success. 

I  do  not  propose  to  describe  the  genesis  of  these 
novels,  or  to  relate  the  chronicles  of  small  beer 
about  their  production,  the  opinions  of  the  press 

202 


SIR      Jr  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

upon  them,  and  their  pecuniary  returns.  I  have 
stated  my  general  method  of  writing  a  novel ;  not, 
mind,  so  many  pages,  or  so  many  hours  a  day ;  not 
sitting  down  by  a  blind  rule,  nor  waiting  till  the 
inspiration  came  —  that  is  only  another  name  for 
prolonged  idleness  under  a  nonsensical  pretence ; 
but  I  exercised  upon  myself  a  certain  amount  of 
pressure  at  the  outset,  when  the  work  was  difficult 
and  the  way  thorny;  and  afterwards,  when  the  way 
was  easv  I  sat  down  morning  after  morning  unless 
indisposition,  or  some  engagement  which  must  be 
kept,  forbade.  As  to  the  appearance  of  these 
novels,  they  all  came  out  in  serial  form  simulta- 
neously in  America  as  well  as  in  England.  Let  me 
here  express  my  great  and  lasting  gratitude  to  my 
agents,  Mr.  A.  P.  Watt  and  his  son,  by  whose 
watch  and  ward  my  interests  have  been  so  carefully 
guarded  for  eighteen  years.  During  that  time  I 
have  always  been  engaged  for  three  years  in  ad- 
vance ;  I  have  been  relieved  from  every  kind  of 
Decuniary  anxiety  ;  my  income  has  been  multiplied 
by  three  at  least;  and  I  have  had,  through  them, 
the  offer  of  a  great  deal  more  work  than  I  could 
undertake.  I  cannot  speak  too  strongly  of  the 
services  rendered  to  me  by  my  literary  agents.  Of 
course,  there  are  different  kinds  of  agents.  There 
is  the  agent,  for  example,  who  knows  nothing  about 
his  business.  But  the  agent  who  does  know  his 
business,  who  knows  also  editors,  publishers,  and 
their  arrangements,  may  be  of  immense  use  to  the 
novelist,  the   essayist,   the   traveller  —  in   short,   to 

203 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

the  author  of  any  book  that  can  command  a 
circulation  and  a  pubHc  demand.  And  such  an 
agent  is   Mr.  A.   P.  Watt. 

Of  the  eighteen  novels,  by  far  the  best,  in  my 
own  judgment,  is  Dorothy  Forster.  It  was,  I  think, 
in  1869  that  I  first  visited  what  is  perhaps  the  most 
interesting  county  in  the  whole  of  England  — 
Northumberland.  It  was  in  Bamborough  Castle 
that  I  first  heard  the  story  of  Dorothy  Forster.  It 
occurred  to  me  then,  before  I  had  begun  to  think 
of  becoming  a  novelist,  that  the  story  was  a  subject 
which  presented  great  possibilities;  but  as  yet  I  had 
only  written  one  story,  which  was  a  failure.  In  1874 
I  was  married.  I  had  by  that  time  written  certain 
novels  which  had  some  success,  and  I  had  already 
resolved  vaguely  upon  undertaking  the  subject  as 
soon  as  I  could  find  time  and  opportunity.  After 
my  marriage  I  made  the  very  interesting  discovery 
that  my  wife's  family  had  changed  their  name  in  the 
year  1698,  or  thereabouts,  from  Forster  to  Barham  ; 
that  they  were  descendants  of  the  Forsters  of 
Addiestone  and  Bamborough,  through  Chief  Justice 
Forster  of  Queen  Elizabeth's  time,  and  that  Doro- 
thy Forster,  my  heroine,  was  therefore  my  wife's 
cousin,  though  ever  so  many  times  removed.  This 
was,  I  say,  a  very  interesting  discovery.  We  went 
down  to  Bamborough  a  year  or  two  later,  making 
a  pilgrimage  to  the  old  home.  In  1880  or  1881  I 
went  again  by  myself,  the  purpose  of  writing  the 
book  having  grown  more  definite.  I  visited  all  the 
places  that  t  wanted  for  the  story,  and  made  many 

204 


SIR     fFJLTER     BESANT 

notes  as  to  the  local  surroundings.  In  1882  I  took 
my  father-in-law  with  me,  and  we  made  together  a 
posting-tour  of  the  country.  This  is  quite  the  best 
way  to  see  the  country-side,  and  I  really  think  that 
I  have  seen  nearly  the  whole  of  Northumberland 
—  not  quite  all,  but  the  most  important  part  —  in 
these  four  visits.  In  1883  I  wrote  the  story  —  with 
great  ease,  because  it  was  already  in  my  head  —  and 
in  1884  it  came  out  in  the  Graphic ^  being  most 
beautifully  illustrated  by  my  late  friend,  Charles 
Green,  whose  drawing,  to  my  mind,  was  surpassed 
by  few,  while  his  conscientious  care  in  the  selection 
of  the  most  telling  situations  and  in  draping  his 
models  with  correct  costumes  was  beyond  all  praise. 
He  gave  me  three  or  four  of  the  drawings,  which  I 
had  framed.  They  now  hang  on  my  staircase,  where 
I  can  see  them  every  day,  and  so  be  reminded  of 
Dorothy,  of  Northumberland,  and  of  Charles 
Green.  The  book  dealt  with  the  Rebellion  of  17 15, 
but  in  its  side  issues.  I  leave  battle-pieces  to  any 
who  choose;  I  know  my  own  limitations,  which  do 
not  include  exercises  in  military  strategy.  A  battle 
is  beyond  me ;  the  marching  and  the  charging  and 
the  points  of  vantage  confuse  me.  So  also  courts 
and  grandeurs  are  beyond  me.  But  I  had  my  brave 
and  loving  Dorothy  with  me.  All  through  the 
book,  in  every  chapter  and  on  every  page,  I  loved 
her  and  I  let  her  talk  and  act ;  to  be  with  her  was 
better  from  my  point  of  view  than  the  clang  and 
clash  of  a  dozen  battles. 

Four  other  stories   out  of  the  eighteen  also   be- 
205 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

longed  to  the  eighteenth  century.  They  were  For 
Faith  and  Freedom  (end  of  seventeenth  century). 
The  World  Went  Very  Well  Then,  St.  Katherines  by 
the  Tower  J  and  The  Orange  Girl}  The  first  of  these, 
like  Dorothy  Forster,  was  a  story  showing  how  a 
great  rebellion,  that  of  Monmouth's,  affected  the 
fortunes  of  a  small  group.  The  battle  of  Sedge- 
moor,  the  haute  politique,  the  intrigues  of  the  Court, 
belonged  to  another  novel,  unwritten.  Mine  had  to 
do  with  the  by-ways,  the  side-currents,  the  backwater 
of  that  movement.  Conan  Doyle  brought  out  his 
novel  of  Micah  Clarke  at  the  same  time  and  on  the 
same  subject.  I  do  not  think  the  two  stories  in- 
jured each  other. 

One  anecdote  in  connection  with  this  story  illus- 
trates the  "long  arm  of  coincidence."  The  people 
in  my  novel  were  sent  out  to  Barbadoes  as  political 
convicts.  I  desired  above  all  things  to  follow  them 
there.  Indeed,  it  was  necessary  unless  a  great  op- 
portunity should  be  thrown  away.  But  I  could 
find  nothing  on  the  subject.  Defoe,  it  is  true, 
talked  about  Virginia  and  the  Plantations,  and  in 
his  own  manner,  apparently,  gave  exact  details. 
When,  however,  one  looked  into  the  pages,  the 
exact  details  were  only  there  in  appearance  —  he 
did  not  know  the  daily  life.  Now  I  wanted  every- 
thing :  the  hours  of  work,  the  kind  of  work,  the 
dress,  the  food,  the  treatment  of  the  prisoners  by 
the  overseers  —  everything.     What   was   I   to   do  } 

^   The  Lady  of  Lynn,  which  was  in  the  press  when  its  author  died,  is 
also  an  eighteenth-century  story. 

206 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

I  went  to  the  British  Museum  :  nothing  seemed 
known.  I  became  sorrowfully  aware  that  I  should 
have  to  invent  the  details,  or  to  guess  at  them  from 
the  very  meagre  notes  at  my  disposal.  Now  to  me, 
pondering  sadly  on  this  necessity,  there  came  one 
evening  half-a-dozen  catalogues  of  second-hand 
books.  I  turned  them  over  idly,  marking  such 
books  as  seemed  likely  to  be  of  help  in  the  restora- 
tion of  the  past,  when  suddenly  I  came  upon  a 
title  that  made  me  jump.      It  was  "  The  Journal  of 

A.  B ,  sometime  chyrurgeon  to   the   Duke   of 

Monmouth,  with  his  trial  and  sentence  to  the  Plan- 
tations of  Barbadoes  ;  his  Captivity  there ;  and  his 
Escape.  Price,  One  Guinea."  Heavens !  What 
luck  !  For  here  was  the  very  thing  I  wanted  !  In 
the  morning  I  drove  off  early  to  the  bookseller's. 
The  book  was  gone  !  An  American  had  picked  it 
up  the  day  before.  But  I  had  at  least  the  title, 
and,  armed  with  this,  I  went  off  again  to  the  British 
Museum.  In  the  vast  ocean  of  pamphlets  in  the 
library  this  was  found.  I  caused  the  whole  thing 
to  be  copied  out  bodily,  with  the  result  that  I  had 
a  chapter  charged  with  real  life,  and  with  the  actual- 
ities of  convict  labour  in  the  late  seventeenth  cen- 
tury. Needless  to  say  that  none  of  my  reviewers 
noticed  this  chapter.  One  man  to  whom  I  told 
the  story  coldly  observed,  "  Then  you  stole  that 
chapter."  Why,  a  man  who  writes  a  novel  of  past 
life,  as  a  history  of  past  life,  must  steal — if  you  call 
it  so  !  He  may  invent,  but  then  it  will  not  be  past 
life ;  he  must  use  the  old  material  if  he  can  find  it ; 

207 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

if  he  cannot  find  it,  he  cannot  write  a  novel  of  past 
life. 

The  third  story  of  the  past  is  called  'T'he  World 
Went  Very  Well  Then.  The  leading  incident  round 
which  the  story  is  constructed  was,  in  like  manner, 
found  by  me.  About  the  end  of  the  seventeenth 
century  there  was  a  certain  young  lieutenant  of  the 
Navy,  who  promised  a  girl  at  Deptford  marriage 
when  he  should  return  from  his  next  cruise.  He 
did  return ;  she  reminded  him  of  his  promise ;  he 
laughed  at  her.  She  fell  on  her  knees  and  prayed 
solemnly  that  God  Almighty  would  smite  him  in 
that  part  which  he  should  feel  the  most.  He  was 
then  appointed  captain  of  a  ship.  He  took  her 
into  action,  having  the  reputation  of  a  brave  and 
gallant  officer.  He  was  seized  with  sudden  cowar- 
dice and  struck  the  flag  at  the  first  shot.  That  was 
my  material  for  the  story,  and  very  good  material 
it  was.  The  story  came  out  in  the  Illustrated  Lon- 
don News^  and  was  admirably  illustrated  by  Mr. 
Forestier. 

Another  eighteenth-century  story,  suggested  by 
an  incident  of  the  time,  was  St.  Katherine's  by  the 
Tower.  In  this  story  the  young  suitor  comes  home 
to  marry  his  sweetheart.  He  arrives  full  of  love 
and  of  happiness.  To  his  amazement  the  girl 
shrinks  from  him,  rejects  him,  with  every  sign  of 
loathing  and  disgust.  More  than  this,  she  falls 
into  melancholia,  threatening  decline.  The  lover 
thinks  that  his  death  alone  will  cause  her  recovery. 
He  courts  death  in  many  ways,  but  death  avoids 

208 


SIR      TF  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

him.  He  therefore  joins  a  company  of  so-called 
"  traitors,"  and  is  sentenced  to  death.  The  rest 
of  the  story  may  be  found  in  the  pages  of  the 
book. 

Of  the  other  novels  I  must  speak  very  briefly. 
They  are  either  studies  of  the  East  End  and  of  the 
people,  as  All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men,  The 
Children  of  Gibeon,  The  Alabaster  Box  —  a  story  of 
a  settlement  —  and  The  Rebel  ^een,  or  they  are 
stories  of  to-day.  All  in  a  Garden  Fair  presents  an 
account,  somewhat  embroidered,  of  my  own  literary 
beginnings.  Herr  Paulus  is  a  story  of  spiritualistic 
fraud — I  have  always  rejoiced  to  think  that  the 
story  was  considered  a  great  blow  to  Sludge  and  his 
friends.  Armorel  of  Lyonesse  is  an  exposure  of  the 
impudent  charlatan  who  produces  artistic  and  literary 
works  under  his  own  name  which  are  executed  by 
another's  hand  —  a  fraud  more  common,  I  have 
been  told,  ten  years  ago,  than  it  is  now.  The  City 
of  Refuge  is  a  story  of  life  in  one  of  the  American 
communities.  The  Master  Craftsman  is  the  history 
of  the  politician  who  makes  himself  by  the  aid  of 
an  ambitious  woman.  Beyond  the  Dreams  of  Avarice 
is  a  tale  of  the  evil  influence  of  the  inheritance  of 
great  wealth.  Of  course  such  a  theme  easily  brings 
to  the  stage  a  number  of  people  of  all  kinds  and 
all  conditions.  The  prospect  of  wealth  corrupts 
and  demoralises  every  one  —  the  man  of  science, 
the  man  of  pleasure,  the  colonial,  the  actor,  the 
American. 

The  Fourth  Generation  is  the  most  serious  of  all 
H  209 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

my  novels.  Here  we  have  to  deal  with  the  truth 
that  the  children  do  undoubtedly  suffer  for  the  sins 
of  the  fathers.  It  is  impossible  to  deny  the  facts 
of  the  case;  they  are  conspicuous  in  every  family, 
in  all  history.  It  seems  unjust.  The  Hebrew 
Prophets  considered  the  case ;  one  of  them  pro- 
claimed the  law;  another  defined  its  limitation.  In 
the  novel  I  have  admitted  the  law.  I  have  shown 
how,  by  reason  of  an  undetected  crime,  one  member 
of  a  family  after  another  is  struck  with  misfortune  and 
degraded  by  crimes.  Yet  there  are  the  limitations. 
A  reviewer,  in  speaking  in  commendation  of  the 
story,  said  that  he  was  amazed  to  find  a  reference 
to  a  Hebrew  Prophet  in  the  preface.  The  amaze- 
ment was  caused  by  his  inability  to  understand  that 
a  novel  may  be  a  perfectly  serious  document  and 
that  a  novelist  may  illustrate  a  most  important  law 
of  humanity  by  a  simple,  even  an  amusing,  story. 
The  limitations  are  plainly  laid  down  by  the 
Prophet  Ezekiel.  They  amount  to  this  :  The  fa- 
ther, by  his  sins,  may  condemn  his  children  for 
many  generations  to  poverty,  to  the  loss  of  social 
position,  to  the  loss  of  all  the  advantages  to  which 
they  were  born ;  he  may  reduce  them  all  to  servi- 
tude ;  he  may  make  it  impossible  for  them  to 
retrieve  their  former  position,  so  that  they  can 
neither  get  oblivion  of  the  past  nor  make  a  new 
beginning  on  the  foundation  of  the  old  evils.  But 
he  cannot  touch  the  souls  of  his  children.  "As  I 
live,  saith  the  Lord  God "  —  hear  the  Prophet's 
more  than  solemn  words  —  "the  soul  of  every  man 


SIR      ^  J  L  T  E  R      B  E  S  A  N  T 

is  mine."  If  the  children  commit  sins  and  crimes, 
they  will  make  it  still  harder  for  their  descendants, 
but  the  crimes  are  not  caused  by  the  sins  of  the 
fathers.     "Amazing,"  said  my  reviewer. 

When  I  read  the  criticasters'  paragraphs  about 
novels  "  with  a  purpose,"  I  ask  myself  what  novel 
I  have  written  that  had  not  a  purpose.  Among 
my  shorter  stories  Katherine  Regina^  the  most  suc- 
cessful, shows  the  misery  of  being  left  destitute 
without  special  training  or  knowledge.  "The  Inner 
House  is  an  allegory  in  which  it  is  shown  that  every- 
thing worth  having  in  life  depends  upon  death,  the 
appointed  end.  One  reviewer  said  it  was  an  attack 
on  socialism.  Twenty  others  immediately  followed 
suit,  glad  of  a  chance  of  noticing  without  reading. 
In  Deacon  s  Orders  is  a  study  in  religiosity,  which 
is  an  emotion  quite  apart  from   religion. 

I'he  Revolt  of  Man  I  brought  out  anonymously. 
It  shows  the  world  turned  upside  down.  Women 
rule  everything  and  do  the  whole  of  the  intellectual 
v/ork  ;  the  Perfect  Woman  is  worshipped  instead 
of  the  Perfect  Man.  The  reception  of  the  book  was 
at  first  extremely  cold ;  none  of  the  reviews  noticed 
it  except  slightingly  ;  it  seemed  as  if  it  was  going 
to  fail  absolutely.  Then  an  article  in  the  Saturday 
RevieWy  written  in  absolute  ignorance  of  the  author- 
ship, started  all  the  papers.  I  sent  for  my  friend 
the  editor  to  lunch  with  me,  and  confessed  the 
truth.  In  five  or  six  weeks  we  had  got  through 
about  nine  thousand  copies.  When  I  say  that 
the    advanced    woman    has    never    ceased  to  abuse 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

the    book    and    the    author,    its    success    will    be 
understood. 

My  course  as  a  novelist  —  or  anything  else  —  is 
now  nearly  finished.  I  do  not  suppose  I  can,  even 
in  the  few  years  or  weeks  that  may  be  left  to  me, 
do  anything  so  good  as  the  work  that  lies  behind. 
But  of  all  forms  of  work,  there  is  none,  to  me  at 
least,  which  could  possibly  be  more  delightful  than 
that  of  fiction.  One  never  wearies  of  the  work  ;  it 
fills  the  brain  with  groups  of  people,  all  curious 
and  all  interesting,  some  most  charming  and  some 
most  villainous.  I  have  never  attempted  what  is 
called  analysis  of  character.  Most  so-called  "  ana- 
lyses "  of  character  are  mere  laborious  talks  —  at- 
tempts to  do  on  many  pages  what  should  be  done 
in  single  strokes  and  in  easy  dialogue.  If  my 
people  do  not  reveal  themselves  by  their  acts  and 
words,  then  I  have  failed.  But,  character  is  com- 
plex ?  Quite  so  ;  the  most  complex  character  can 
only  be  understood  by  acts  and  words.  The  ana- 
lysers start  with  a  view  of  art  which  is  not  mine.  I 
admit,  however,  that  in  the  hands  of  one  or  two 
writers  the  results  have  been  very  fine.  But  it  is 
not  the  art  of  Fielding,  Smollett,  Scott,  Thackeray, 
Dickens,  Reade.  With  all  these  writers  the  analysis 
of  character  takes  the  form  of  presentation  of 
character  by  act  and  word.  At  the  outset,  all  we 
know  of  a  person  in  the  tale  is  that  he  has  done 
certain  things.  Then,  by  degrees,  perhaps  without 
the  knowledge  or  the  intention  of  the  writer,  the 
character   talks   and   acts  in  such  a  way,  under  the 


SIR      IV  J  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

influence  of  conditions  of  birth,  education,  and  sur- 
roundings, as  to  make  us  understand  how  complex 
is  his  character,  how  strangely  mixed  of  good  and 
evil.  And  this  kind  of  art  seems  to  me  by  far  the 
higher  and  the  truer,  and  to  give  better  results, 
simply  because  no  writer  is  able  at  the  outset  to  say, 
"  Thus  and  thus  shall  be  the  character  of  my  hero  ; 
so  complex  ;  shot  with  so  many  hues  ;  so  full  of 
changes  and  surprises ;  so  shifting  and  so  blown 
about  here  and  there  by  every  wind  that  sweeps 
his  level."  For  my  own  part  I  like  my  char- 
acters to  tread  the  stage  speaking  and  acting  so 
that  all  the  world  may  understand  them  and  their 
revelation  of  themselves  in  works  and  ways,  in 
thoughts  and  speech.  Mine,  it  will  be  objected, 
is  a  simple  form  of  art.  Is  it  not,  however,  the 
art  of  Dickens,  Scott,  and  Fielding?  Let  me  be- 
long to  the  school  of  the  Masters  ;  let  me  be  con- 
tent to  follow  humbly  and  at  however  great  a 
distance  in  the  lines  laid  down  by  them. 

To  return  to  my  work.  "  Why  do  you  not  give 
us,"  said  one  to  me,  "  the  fun  and  laughter  of  The 
Golden  Butterfly  ?  "  Well,  you  see,  I  was  in  my 
thirties  then,  and  I  am  now  in  my  sixties.  The 
bubbling  spirits  of  a  sanguine  and  cheerful  temper- 
ament made  me  happy  and  made  of  the  world  a 
Garden  of  Delight  in  those  days.  The  spirits 
which  enabled  me  to  contribute  to  the  cheerfulness 
of  my  readers  when  that  book  and  certain  other  of 
my  collaborations  were  written  are  gone.  They 
cannot  exist  with  my  present  time  of  life.      What  is 

213 


JUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

left  me  is  at  best  but  a  sobered  cheerfulness. 
Yet,  I  think,  my  work  has  never  yet  been  gloomy. 
Thank  Heaven !  I  have  had  less  during  my  life,  so 
far,  to  make  me  gloomy  in  the  sixties  than  falls  to 
the  lot  of  many  men  in  the  thirties.  Let  me,  in 
what  remains  of  life,  preserve  cheerfulness,  if  only 
the  cheerfulness  of  common  gratitude.  No  one 
ought  to  acknowledge  more  profoundly  than  my- 
self the  happiness  that  has  been  bestowed  upon  me ; 
the  domestic  peace ;  the  freedom  from  pecuniary 
troubles ;  literary  success  in  a  measure  unhoped  for ; 
a  name  known  all  over  the  English-speaking  world ; 
and  circles  of  friends.  And  with  them  a  whole 
army  of  enemies  —  exactly  such  enemies  as  one,  at 
the  outset,  would  desire  above  all  things,  to  make  : 
the  spiritualistic  fraud  with  his  lying  pretensions 
and  his  revelations  revealing  nothing  from  the  other 
world  ;  the  sickly  sentimentalist  blubbering  over  the 
righteous  punishment  of  the  sturdy  rogue  ;  and  the 
shrieking  sisterhood.  They  are  all  my  enemies, 
and  if,  at  the  beginning  of  life,  I  had  been  asked 
what  enemies  I  would  make  —  could  I  have  made 
a  better  choice  ? 


214 


SIR      IVALTER      BESANT 


Chapter  XII 


THE    SOCIETY    OF    AUTHORS    AND    OTHER 
SOCIETIES 

IT  was  in  the  month  of  September  and  the  year 
1883  that  a  small  company  of  twelve  or  fifteen 
men  met  in  Mr.  Scoones's  chambers,  Garrick 
Street,  in  order  to  form  an  association  or  society  of 
men  and  women  engaged  in  letters.  What  we  were 
going  to  do;  how  we  were  going  to  do  anything; 
what  was  wanted;  why  it  was  wanted — all  these 
things  were  not  only  imperfectly  understood,  they 
were  not  understood  at  all.  It  was  only  felt 
vaguely,  as  it  had  been  felt  for  fifty  years,  that  the 
position  of  literary  men  was  most  unsatisfactory. 
The  air  was  full  of  discontent  and  murmurs ;  yet 
when    any    broke    out    into    open    accusation,    the 

1  Sir  Walter  Besant,  in  a  note  at  the  end  of  the  ninth  chapter  of 
his  manuscript,  refers  to  his  intention  to  tell  the  story  of  the  Society 
of  Authors,  and  later  alludes  to  the  Society  as  though  he  had  fulfilled 
this  design.  The  account  of  the  Society  of  Authors  which  follows 
was  written  in  1892,  and  was  read  by  him  at  the  annual  meeting  of 
that  year,  on  his  resignation  of  the  chairmanship.  Undoubtedly  this 
is  the  account  which  he  meant  to  include  in  his  autobiography,  though 
he  would  have  made  corrections  and  additions,  most  of  which  are  called 
for  by  the  lapse  of  ten  years.  All  that  Sir  Walter  Besant  said  is  not 
included,  for  some  of  his  words  were  due  to  the  occasion,  and  had  no 
direct  bearing  on  the  story  of  the  Society  in  which  he  was  so  profoundly 
interested. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

grievance,  in  some  mysterious  way,  became  insub- 
stantial, and  the  charge,  whatever  it  was,  fell  to  the 
ground.  It  was  impossible  to  find  a  remedy,  be- 
cause the  disease  itself  could  not  be  diagnosed. 
Nevertheless  the  murmuring  continued,  and  either 
rolled  about  the  air  in  harmless  thunder  or  broke 
out  into  epigrams.  The  discontent  of  authors  may 
be  traced  back  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  simply 
by  the  continuous  beaded  string  of  epigrams  in 
which   they   have   relieved  their  angry  souls. 

We  began,  therefore,  in  our  ignorance,  with  one 
or  two  quite  safe  general  propositions.  Nothing 
could  be  more  simple,  more  unpretending,  or  more 
innocent  than  the  general  propositions  of  the  So- 
ciety. We  proposed,  in  short,  three  objects:  (i) 
The  maintenance,  definition,  and  defence  of  literary 
property ;  (2)  the  consolidation  and  amendment  of 
the  laws  of  domestic  copyright ;  (3)  the  promotion 
of  international  copyright. 

This  statement  or  announcement  of  intention,  it 
was  hoped,  would  give  no  offence  and  excite  no 
jealousies.  We  were  naturally,  at  the  outset,  dis- 
trustful of  ourselves  ;  uncertain  as  to  the  support 
we  should  receive  ;  timid  as  to  our  power  of  doing 
anything  at  all  ;  anxious  not  to  do  mischief.  Later 
experience  has  partly  removed  this  timidity.  We 
have  ventured,  and  shall  now  continue,  to  speak 
openly  and  to  publish  and  proclaim  aloud  the  whole 
truth  connected  with  the  literary  profession. 

Fortunately,  we  discovered  very  early  in  our  pro- 
ceedings  that   even   a   document  so  modest  as  our 

216 


SIR      JVALTER     BESANT 

first  circular  was  giving  dire  offence  in  certain 
quarters.  It  was  more  than  hinted  that  the  results 
to  all  concerned  would  be  disastrous  to  the  last  de- 
gree. That  was  nine  years  ago.  What  things  have 
been  said  and  done  since  that  time  !  Yet  here  we 
stand,  not  a  whit  the  worse,  any  of  us  ;  and  how 
much  better  we  are  now  going  to  consider.  I  say 
that  this  was  a  fortunate  discovery,  because  it  showed 
us  that  we  should  encounter  opposition  whatever 
we  might  do  or  say.  Literary  property,  we  were 
given  to  understand  quite  clearly,  v^^as  to  be  con- 
sidered as  a  sacred  ark  which  none  but  the  priests  — 
i.e.^  those  who  had  it  already  in  their  hands  —  might 
touch.  This  opposition  in  some  quarters  took  the 
form  of  personal  appeals  to  authors  not  to  join  the 
new  association,  while  in  many  cases  the  fear  of 
giving  offence  and  suffering  loss  in  consequence 
caused  —  and  even  still  causes  —  some  to  hold 
aloof. 

Having,  then,  produced  our  prospectus,  we  set 
to  work  to  gain  the  adhesion  of  as  many  leaders  in 
literature  as  we  could.  Our  first  and  greatest  suc- 
cess —  a  success  which  won  for  us  at  the  outset  re- 
spectful consideration  —  was  the  acceptance  by  Lord 
Tennyson  of  the  presidency.  Had  we  elected,  or 
been  compelled  to  accept,  any  lesser  man  than  the 
Laureate,  our  progress  would  have  been  far  more 
difficult.  With  him  at  our  head  we  were  from  the 
first  accepted  seriously. 

Our  next  success  lay  in  the  extremely  respectable 
and  representative  body  of  members  who  consented 

217 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

to  join  us  as  our  vice-presidents.  As  a  representa- 
tive body,  no  list  could  have  been  more  gratifying. 
Poetry  was  represented  — to  name  only  a  few- — by 
the  second  Lord  Lytton,  Sir  Theodore  Martin,  and 
Matthew  Arnold ;  science  by  Huxley,  Lord  Ray- 
ieigh,  Michael  Foster,  Tyndall,  Norman  Lockyer, 
Sir  Henry  Thompson,  and  Burdon  Sanderson  ; 
history  by  Edward  Dicey,  Froude,  Sir  Henry 
Maine,  Max  Miiller,  Sir  Henry  Rawlinson,  Dr. 
Russell,  and  Professor  Seeley ;  theology  by  the 
Bishop  of  Gloucester,  Cardinal  Manning,  Dean 
Kitchin,  Dr.  Martineau,  Archdeacon  Farrar,  Dean 
Vaughan,  and  the  Rev.  Henry  White ;  the  Army 
by  Lord  Wolseley,  Sir  Charles  Warren,  and  Sir 
Charles  Wilson  ;  fiction  by  William  Black,  R.  D. 
Blackmore,  Wilkie  Collins,  Charles  Reade,  Char- 
lotte Yonge ;  dramatic  literature  by  Hermann  Meri- 
vale,  John  Hollingshead,  and  Moy  Thomas  ; 
journalism  by  George  Augustus  Sala ;  in  fact,  every- 
thing was  represented. 

In  the  first  year  of  our  existence,  again,  another 
very  curious  and  unexpected  piece  of  good  fortune 
happened  to  us  :  Sir  Robert  Fowler,  then  Lord 
Mayor  of  London,  invited  the  Society,  as  a  Society, 
to  a  banquet  at  the  Mansion  House.  The  im- 
portance to  us,  at  that  moment,  of  such  public 
recognition  cannot  be  exaggerated.  We  were  sud- 
denly, and  unexpectedly,  dragged  out  into  the  light 
and  exhibited  to  the  world.  And  what  with  news- 
paper controversies,  publications,  public  meetings, 
and  public  dinners,  we  have  been  very  much  before 

218 


SIR      fV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  NT 

the  world  ever  since.  But  our  first  public  recogni- 
tion we  owe  to  Sir  Robert  Fowler. 

As  yet,  however,  we  were  an  army  of  officers 
without  any  rank  and  file.  We  had  to  enlist  re- 
cruits. It  has  been  our  object  ever  since,  not  so 
much  to  persuade  people  that  we  are  proposing  and 
actually  doing  good  work,  as  to  persuade  them  that 
it  is  the  bounden  duty  of  every  one  engaged  in  the 
literary  calling  to  support  the  only  association  which 
exists  in  this  country  for  the  maintenance  and  defi- 
nition of  their  property.  The  slow  growth  of  the 
Society,  in  spite  of  all  the  encouragement  we  re- 
ceived, shows  the  difficulties  we  had  in  this  direc- 
tion. Take  the  figures  from  the  annual  reports. 
In  the  first  year,  1884.,  there  were  only  68  paying 
members;  in  1886  there  were  only  153  — and  that 
in  the  third  year  of  our  existence;  in  1888  there 
were  240;  in  1889,  372;  in  1891,  662;  and  in 
1892,  this  year,  up  to  the  present  day,  there  have 
been  870,  which  of  course  does  not  include  25  who 
have  paid  up  life  membership,  20  honorary  mem- 
bers, and  50  who  may  or  may  not  pay,  and  if  they 
do  not,  will  cease  to  be  members.  So  slowly  have 
we  grown  ;  so  difficult  has  it  been  to  persuade  those 
who  actually  benefit  by  our  labours  openly  to  join 
our  company. 

We  met  at  first  in  Mr.  Scoones's  chambers.  Gar- 
rick  Street.  After  a  few  months  we  met  in  the 
offices  of  our  first  secretary  and  solicitor,  Mr.  Tris- 
tram Valentine.  Then  we  took  a  step  in  advance, 
and  engaged  a  modest  office  of  our  own.     It  was  on 

219 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

the  second  floor  of  a  house  in  Cecil  Street,  over  the 
office  of  an  income  tax  collector,  who  never  asked 
us  for  anything.     We  had  —  when  we  took  that  step 

—  really  no  more  than  one  hundred  members  ;  some 
of  us  had  to  become  life  members  in  order  to  find  the 
preliminary  expenses.  How  modest  that  office  was  1 
How  simple  was  its  furniture  !  Yet  it  is  never  un- 
pleasant for  a  self-made  man  to  look  back  at  the 
beginnings,  or  for  the  self-made  society  —  which  we 
certainly  are  —  to  consider  the  day  of  small  things. 

This  was  in  February  1885,  after  more  than 
a  year  of  existence.  We  were  still  floundering  ;  we 
were  still  in  uncertainty ;  we  had  not  yet  found  out 
even  the  first  step  in  the  right  direction.  Most  fortu- 
nately we  were  prudent  enough  not  to  commit  any 
extravagances.  We  were  restrained  from  follies,  I 
think,  by  the  lawyers  who  were  on  our  committee. 
Happily,  we  brought  forward  no  charges,  denounced 
no  persons,  and  condemned  no  systems.  We  kept 
very  quiet,  considering  the  situation,  making  inves- 
tigations and  acquiring  knowledge.  Nothing,  I 
now  perceive,  more  clearly  proves  the  general  dis- 
content among  men  and  women  of  letters  than  the 
fact  that,  though  we  did  nothing  all  this  time  —  or 
next  to  nothing — ■  our  numbers,  as  you  have  seen, 
steadily,  though  slowly,  increased.  We  had  now, 
however,  obtained  the  services  —  the  gratuitous 
services  —  of  a  gentleman  whose  name  must  always 
be  remembered  in  connection  with  our  early  history 

—  Mr.  Alexander  Gait  Ross,  who  became  our 
honorary  secretary. 

220 


SIR      fVALTER      BESANT 

At  this  time  I,  who  had  been  preliminary  chair- 
man during  the  first  organisation  of  the  Society, 
retired,  and  the  late  Mr.  Cotter  Morison  was  elected 
chairman.  Let  me  take  this  opportunity  of  acknowl- 
edging the  resolution,  the  wisdom,  and  the  modera- 
tion with  which  Mr.  Cotter  Morison  filled  that 
post.  The  mere  fact  that  a  man  of  his  great  per- 
sonal character  was  our  chairman  greatly  increased 
the  confidence  of  the  public.  He  resigned  the  post 
a  year  or  two  later,  when  he  was  attacked  by  the 
disease  which  killed  him.  Great  as  was  the  loss 
to  literature  by  his  death,  it  was  a  blow  to  our- 
selves from  which  it  seems  to  me  that  we  have 
never  wholly  recovered.  Even  now,  in  all  times 
of  difficulty,  I  instinctively  feel  that  if  Cotter 
Morison  were  only  with  us,  the  difficulty  would 
be  far  more  easily  faced,  and  far  more  wisely  sur- 
mounted. The  place  of  Mr.  Cotter  Morison  was 
taken  by  the  late  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  who, 
from  the  very  beginning,  had  shown  a  keen  in- 
terest in  the  prospect  and  progress  of  the  Society. 
His  tenure  of  office  was  short,  and  not  marked  by 
anything  more  than  the  steady  advance  of  our 
objects.  On  his  retirement,  owing  also  to  ill-health, 
the  committee  did  me  the  honour  of  electing  me 
to  take  the  post. 

Now,  when  it  became  gradually  known  that  such 
a  society  as  this  existed,  that  a  secretary  was  in  the 
office  all  day  long,  and  that  he  held  consultations 
for  nothing  with  all  comers,  all  those  who  were  in 
trouble  over  their  books,  all  those  who  had  grievances 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

and  quarrels,  began  to  come  to  us  for  advice  and 
assistance.  In  this  way  began  that  part  of  the 
Society's  work  which  is  generally  understood  by  the 
world ;  and  in  this  way  began  our  early  troubles. 
Because,  you  see,  it  was  a  very  easy  thing  to  hear 
and  to  receive  a  case ;  the  difficulty  was  how  to  find 
a  remedy  or  to  obtain  justice  where  the  case  de- 
manded either.  We  did  sometimes  find  a  remedy, 
and  we  did  obtain  justice  in  many  cases.  But  partly 
from  want  of  funds,  and  partly  from  the  unwilling- 
ness of  victims  to  take  action,  several  cases  fell  to 
the  ground. 

After  a  little  time  we  abandoned  our  first  organi- 
sation of  vice-presidents  and  committee,  and  sub- 
stituted a  council.  We  also  incorporated  ourselves 
into  a  company.  We  had  the  good  fortune  to  se- 
cure the  services  of  Mr.  Underdown,  Q.C.,  as  our 
honorary  counsel,  and  of  Messrs.  Field,  Roscoe  & 
Co.  as  our  solicitors.  Turning  back  to  our  first 
circular,  and  to  the  three  divisions  of  work  laid 
down,  let  us  take  the  international  copyright  clause 
first.  At  the  stage  at  which  the  American  Bill  had 
then  arrived,  very  little  could  be  done,  except,  as 
our  American  friends  strongly  recommended,  to  stop 
as  much  as  lay  in  our  power  the  calling  of  names. 
We  had,  in  fact,  as  was  pointed  out  by  Mr.  Brander 
Matthews  and  other  Americans,  been  doing  on  this 
side  exactly  what  the  Americans  were  doing  on  their 
side  —  pirating  books.  It  was  absurd  to  keep 
calling  the  Americans  thieves  and  pirates  while  our 
people  did  exactly  the  same  thing  on  a  smaller  scale. 


SIR      PF  J  L  TE  R      B  ES  A  N  r 

It  exasperated  Americans  and  weakened  the  efforts 
of  those  who  were  manfully  fighting  in  the  cause 
of  international  honesty.  Such  influence  as  we 
possessed  we  brought  to  bear  in  this  direction, 
with,  one  hopes  and  believes,  a  certain  allaying  of 
irritation.^ 

As  regards  the  consolidation  of  the  copyright 
laws,  our  action  has  been  more  direct  and  far  more 
important.  In  fact,  there  are  some  who  think  that 
our  action  under  this  head  is  more  important  to  the 
cause  of  literature  than  anything  else  that  we  have 
achieved  or  attempted,  for  in  this  direction  there  was 
no  hesitation  or  any  doubt  as  to  what  was  wanted. 
Things  chaotic  had  to  be  reduced  to  order,  and  only 
a  new  Act  could  do  it.  We  appointed  a  copyright 
committee,  consisting  of  Sir  Frederick  Pollock, 
Mr.  Lely,  Mr.  Fraser  Rae,  Mr.  Ross,  and  Mr.  W. 
Oliver  Hodges  as  honorary  secretary,  and  with  the 
assistance  of  Mr.  Underdown,  our  honorary  counsel, 
and  Mr.  Rolt,  of  the  Inner  Temple,  a  new  Copy- 
right Bill  was  drafted.  This  Bill  was  submitted  to 
the  London  Chamber  of  Commerce  for  their  con- 
sideration, and  adopted  by  that  body.  It  was  then 
introduced  into  the  House  of  Lords  by  Lord 
Monkswell,  and  read  a  first  time.  It  will  be  a  great 
thing  in  the  history  of  the  Society  to  record  that  it 
has  actually  accomplished  the  consolidation  of  the 

^  The  United  States  of  America  granted  copyright  under  certain 
conditions  to  British  authors  in  1891.  This  measure,  though  enacted 
at  the  date  upon  which  Sir  Walter  Besant  was  writing,  had  not  yet 
produced  practical  effect. 

223 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

various  Copyright  Acts  into  one  working  and  intel- 
ligible Act.^ 

Now  all  this  time  we  were  receiving  continually 
accounts,  agreements,-  letters,  and  cases.  The  daily 
correspondence  had  become  very  heavy.  We  there- 
fore gave  Mr.  Ross  a  coadjutor  in  Mr.  James 
Stanley  Little,  who  was  our  secretary  for  two  years. 
He  retired  owing  to  pressure  of  his  own  literary 
work,  and  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  S.  Squire  Sprigge, 
who  remained  with  us  for  four  years,  until  our  work 
became  too  much  for  him,  taken  with  his  other  en- 
gagements. He  therefore  left  us,  but  remains  on 
our  committee.  One  must  not  omit  to  acknowl- 
edge that  during  his  four  years  of  office  he  was  the 
spring  and  soul  of  the  Society,  and  that  our  rapid 
advance  during  that  time  is  mainly  owing  to  his 
energies.  He  was  succeeded  by  Mr.  G.  Herbert 
Thring. 

Meantime  we  had  been  slowly  arriving  at  the 
comprehension  of  the  fact  that,  in  order  to  defend 
literary  property,  we  must  understand  exactly  what 
it  is,  of  what  extent,  how  it  is  created,  how  it  is 
administered,  how  it  should  be  safeguarded.  The 
first  step  in  advance  was  when,  at  a  public  meeting, 
held  at  Willis's   Rooms,  we  laid  down  the  sound 

^  The  Bill  was  read  a  second  time  in  the  House  of  Lords  about  ten 
years  ago  j  and  though  it  was  not  proceeded  with  further,  it  became 
the  starting-point  for  future  effort.  In  1896  a  non-contentious  amending 
Bill  was  drafted  by  the  Society  of  Authors,  and  read  in  the  House  of 
Lords,  and  in  1898  Lord  Thring  consented  to  draft  a  Bill  dealing  with 
literary,  dramatic,  and  musical  copyright.  This  Bill  will  probably 
form  the  basis  of  future  legislation. 

224 


SIR      fF  J  L  r  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

principle  that  publishers'  accounts,  like  those  of  any- 
other  enterprise  in  which  two  or  more  persons  are 
jointly  interested,  must  be  subject  to  audit,  as  a 
simple  right  and  a  simple  precaution.  This  right 
was  publicly  acknowledged  by  Messrs.  Longman  & 
Co.,  who  were  followed  by  other  publishers,  but  not 
by  all.  Since  then  we  have  devoted  a  great  deal  of 
attention  to  ascertaining  exactly  what  the  copyright 
of  a  book  and  its  publication  may  mean  as  actual 
property.  There  has  been  a  stream  of  abuse, 
detraction,  and  wilful  misrepresentation  of  our 
work  poured  upon  us  continually.  Chiefly,  we 
have  been  reviled  for  daring  to  ask  what  our  own 
property  means.  This  abuse  shows,  first,  the  hos- 
tility of  those  who  desire  to  conceal  and  hush  up 
the  truth  as  regards  the  buying  and  selling  of  books. 
That  is  a  matter  of  course;  such  hostility  was  to  be 
expected,  and,  with  all  the  misrepresentations  that 
can  be  devised  and  invented,  must  be  taken  as  part 
of  the  day's  work.  It  has  been,  as  you  perhaps 
know,  a  good  part  of  my  day's  work,  during  the 
last  five  years,  to  silence  this  opposition.  I  am 
happy  to  think  that  every  such  misrepresentation 
published  in  a  newspaper  or  in  a  magazine  has  only 
resulted  in  an  accession  of  new  members  and  in  an 
increase  in  public  confidence.  But,  in  addition  to 
the  opposition  of  interested  persons,  we  have  had 
to  encounter  a  very  unexpected  and  remarkable  op- 
position from  those  who  ought  to  be  our  own 
friends  —  certain  authors  and  certain  journalists. 
Into  the  history  and  motives  and  reason  of  this 
15  225 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

opposition   I   should   like  with  your  permission  to 
inquire. 

There  has  existed  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
at  least,  and  there  still  lingers  among  us,  a  feeling 
that  it  is  unworthy  the  dignity  of  letters  to  take  any 
account  at  all  of  the  commercial  or  pecuniary  side. 
No  one,  you  will  please  to  remark,  has  ever  thought 
of  reproaching  the  barrister,  the  solicitor,  the  physi- 
cian, the  surgeon,  the  painter,  the  sculptor,  the 
actor,  the  singer,  the  musician,  the  architect,  the 
chemist,  the  engineer,  the  clergyman,  or  any  other 
kind  of  brain  worker  that  one  can  mention,  with 
taking  fees  or  salaries  or  money  for  his  work ;  nor 
does  any  one  reproach  these  men  with  looking  after 
their  fees  and  getting  rich  it  they  can.  Nor  does 
any  one  suggest  that  to  consider  the  subject  of  pay- 
ment very  carefully  —  to  take  ordinary  precautions 
against  dishonesty  —  brings  discredit  on  any  one 
who  does  so  ;  nor  does  any  one  call  that  barrister 
unworthy  of  the  Bar  who  expects  large  fees  in  pro- 
portion to  his  name  and  his  ability  ;  nor  does  any 
one  call  that  painter  a  tradesman  whose  price  ad- 
vances with  his  reputation.  I  beg  you  to  consider 
this  point  very  carefully,  for  the  moment  any  author 
begins  to  make  practical  investigation  into  the  value 
—  the  monetary  value  —  of  the  work  which  he  puts 
upon  the  market,  a  hundred  voices  arise  from  those 
of  his  own  craft  as  well  as  from  those  who  live  by 
administering  his  property  —  voices  which  cry  out 
upon  the  sordidness,  the  meanness,  the  degradation 
of  turning  literature  into  a  trade.     We  hear,  I  say, 

226 


SIR      PF  J  L  T  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

this  kind  of  talk  from  our  own  ranks  —  though, 
one  must  own,  chiefly  from  those  who  never  had  an 
opportunity  of  discovering  what  literary  property 
means.  Does,  I  ask,  this  cry  mean  anything  at 
all  ?  Well,  first  of  all,  it  manifestly  means  a 
confusion  of  ideas.  There  are  two  values  of 
literary  work — distinct,  separate,  not  commensura- 
ble —  they  cannot  be  measured,  they  cannot  be 
considered  together.  The  one  is  the  literary  value 
of  a  work  —  its  artistic,  poetic,  dramatic  value,  its 
value  of  accuracy,  of  construction,  of  presentation, 
of  novelty,  of  style,  of  magnetism.  On  that  value 
is  based  the  real  position  of  every  writer  in  his  own 
generation,  and  the  estimate  of  him,  should  he 
survive,  for  generations  to  follow.  I  do  not  greatly 
blame  those  who  cry  out  upon  the  connection  of 
literature  with  trade:  they  are  jealous,  and  rightly 
jealous,  for  the  honour  of  letters.  We  will  acknow- 
ledge so  much.  But  the  confusion  lies  in  not 
understanding  that  every  man  who  takes  money 
for  whatever  he  makes  or  does  may  be  regarded,  in 
a  way,  and  not  offensively,  as  a  tradesman,  but  that 
the  making  of  a  thing  need  have  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  the  price  it  will  command ;  and  that  this 
price  in  the  case  of  a  book  cannot  be  measured  by 
the  literary  or  artistic  value. 

In  other  words,  while  an  artist  is  at  work  upon  a 
poem,  a  drama,  or  a  romance,  this  aspect  of  his 
work,  and  this  alone,  is  in  his  mind,  otherwise  his 
work  would  be  naught.  But  once  finished  and 
ready  for  production,  then  comes  in  the  other  value 

227 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

—  the  commercial  value,  which  is  a  distinct  thing. 
Here  the  artist  ceases  and  the  man  of  business 
begins.  Either  the  man  of  business  begins  at  this 
point  or  the  next  steps  of  that  artist  infallibly  bring 
him  to  disaster,  or  at  least  the  partial  loss  of  that 
commercial  value.  Remember  that  any  man  who 
has  to  sell  a  thing  must  make  himself  acquainted 
with  its  value,  or  he  will  be  —  what?  Call  it  what 
you  please  —  over-reached,  deluded,  cheated.  That 
is  a  recognised  rule  in  every  other  kind  of  business. 
Let  us  do  our  best  to  make  it  recognised  in  our 
own. 

Apart  from  this  confusion  of  ideas  between  liter- 
ary and  commercial  value,  there  is  another  and  a 
secondary  reason  for  this  feeling.  For  two  hun- 
dred years,  at  least,  contempt  of  every  kind  has 
been  poured  upon  the  literary  hack,  who  is,  poor 
wretch,  the  unsuccessful  author.  Why  ?  We  do 
not  pour  contempt  upon  the  unsuccessful  painter  who 
has  to  make  the  pot  boil  with  pictures  at  15^.  each. 
Clive  Newcome  came  down  to  that,  and  a  very 
pitiful,  tearful  scene  in  the  story  it  is  —  full  of  pity 
and  of  tears.  If  he  had  been  a  literary  hack,  where 
would  have  been  the  pity  and  the  tears.?  In  my 
experience  at  the  Society,  I  have  come  across  many 
most  pitiful  cases,  where  the  man  who  has  failed  is 
doomed  to  lead  a  life  which  is  one  long  tragedy  of 
grinding,  miserable,  underpaid  work,  with  no  hope 
and  no  relief  possible  —  one  long  tragedy  of  endur- 
ance and  hardship.  I  am  not  accusing  any  one ;  I 
call  no  names ;  very  likely  such  a  man  gets  all  he 

228 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  J  N  T 

deserves  ;  his  are  the  poor  wages  of  incompetence ; 
his  is  the  servitude  of  the  lowest  work  ;  his  is  the 
contumely  of  hopeless  poverty  ;  his  is  the  derision 
of  the  critic.  But  we  laugh  at  such  a  wretch,  and 
call  him  a  literary  hack.  Why,  I  ask,  when  we 
pity  the  unsuccessful  in  every  other  line,  do  we 
laugh  at  and  despise  the  unsuccessful  author? 

Once  more,  this  contempt  —  real  or  pretended  — 
for  money,  what  does  it  mean  ?  Sir  Walter  Scott 
did  not  despise  the  income  which  he  made  by  his 
books,  nor  did  Byron,  nor  did  Dickens,  Thackeray, 
George  Eliot,  Charles  Reade,  Wilkie  Collins,  Ma- 
caulay,  nor,  in  fact,  any  single  man  or  woman  in  the 
history  of  letters  who  has  ever  succeeded.  This 
pretended  contempt,  then  —  does  it  belong  to  those 
who  have  not  succeeded  ?  It  is  sometimes  assumed 
by  them  ;  more  often  one  finds  it  in  articles  written 
for  certain  papers  by  sentimental  ladies  who  are 
not  authors.  Wherever  it  is  found,  it  is  always 
lingering  somewhere ;  always  we  come  upon  this 
feeling,  ridiculous,  senseless,  and  baseless  —  that  it 
is  beneath  the  dignity  of  an  author  to  manage  his 
business  matters  as  a  man  of  business  should,  with 
the  same  regard  for  equity  in  his  agreement,  the 
same  resolution  to  know  what  is  meant  by  both 
sides  of  an  agreement,  and  the  same  jealousy  as  to 
assigning  the  administration  of  his  property. 

Again,  how  did  the  contempt  rise.^  It  came  to 
us  as  a  heritage  of  the  last  century.  In  the  course 
of  our  investigations  into  the  history  of  literary 
property  —  the  result  of  which  will,  I  hope,  appear 

229 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

some  day  in  a  volume  form  —  I  recently  caused  a 
research  to  be  made  into  the  business  side  of  litera- 
ture in  the  last  century.  Publishers  were  not  then 
men  of  education  and  knowledge,  as  many  of  them 
are  at  the  present  moment ;  they  were  not  advised 
by  scholars,  men  of  taste  and  intuition ;  the  market, 
compared  with  that  of  the  present  day,  was  incon- 
ceivably small ;  there  were  great  risks,  due  to  all 
these  causes.  The  practice,  therefore,  was,  in  view 
of  these  risks,  to  pay  the  author  so  much  for  his 
book  right  out,  and  to  expect  a  successful  book 
to  balance,  and  more  than  balance,  one  that  was 
unsuccessful.  Therefore  they  bought  the  books 
they  published  at  the  lowest  price  they  could  per- 
suade the  author  to  accept.  Therefore  —  the  con- 
sequence follows  like  the  next  line  in  Euclid  —  the 
author  began  to  appear  to  the  popular  imagination 
as  a  suppliant  standing  hat  in  hand  beseeching  the 
generosity  of  the  bookseller.  Physician  and  barris- 
ter stood  upright,  taking  the  recognised  fee.  The 
author  bent  a  humble  back,  holding  his  hat  in  one 
humble  hand,  while  he  held  out  the  other  humble 
hand  for  as  many  guineas  as  he  could  get.  That,  I 
say,  was  the  popular  view  of  the  author.  And  it 
still  lingers  among  us.  There  are.  In  other  callings, 
if  we  think  of  it,  other  professional  contempts. 
Everybody  acknowledges  that  teaching  is  a  noble 
work,  but  everybody  formerly  despised  the  school- 
master because  he  was  always  flogging  boys  —  no 
imagination  can  regard  with  honour  and  envy  the 

man  who  is  all  day  long  caning  and  flogging.     The 

230 


SIR      JVALTER      BESANT 

law  is  a  noble  study,  but  everybody  formerly  de- 
spised the  attorney,  with  whom  the  barrister  would 
neither  shake  hands  nor  sit  at  table.  Medicine 
is  a  noble  study,  but  the  surgeon  was  formerly 
despised  because  in  bygone  days  he  was  closely 
connected  with  the  barber.  Do  not  let  us  be 
surprised,  therefore,  if  the  author,  who  had  to  take 
whatever  was  given  to  him,  came  to  be  regarded  as 
a  poor  helpless  suppliant. 

The  kind  of  language  even  now  sometimes  used 
illustrates  a  lingering  of  the  old  feehng.  We  con- 
stantly read  here  and  there  of  the  generosity  of  a 
publisher.  My  friends,  let  us  henceforth  resolve 
to  proclaim  that  we  do  not  want  generosity  ;  that 
we  will  not  have  it;  that  we  are  not  beggars  and 
suppliants,  and  that  what  we  want  is  the  adminis- 
tration of  our  own  property  —  or  its  purchase  —  on 
fair,  just,  and  honourable  terms.  Let  us  remember 
that  the  so-called  generosity  must  be  either  a  dole 
—  an  alms  —  over  and  above  his  just  claim,  in 
which  case  it  degrades  the  author  to  take  it,  and 
robs  the  publisher  who  gives  it;  or  it  is  a  pay- 
ment under  the  just  value,  when  it  degrades  the 
publisher  who  gives  it,  while  it  robs  the  author 
who  takes  it. 

I  return  to  the  history  of  the  Society.  When 
our  office  was  discovered,  so  to  speak,  by  the  out- 
side world,  I  have  said  that  there  began  to  be 
poured  in  upon  us  a  continuous  stream,  which  has 
never  ceased,  of  agreements,  accounts,  proposals, 
estimates,  and    letters  between   publishers  and  au- 

231 


A  U  T  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  T     OF 

thors.  From  the  examination  and  the  comparison 
of  these  documents,  from  other  matter  obtained  of 
printers,  from  communications  made  to  us  by  per- 
sons formerly  engaged  in  publishing  offices,  and 
from  every  possible  source  of  information,  we  ar- 
rived at  a  knowledge  of  the  business  side  of  litera- 
ture which  is  certainly  unrivalled  by  that  possessed 
by  any  man,  even  by  any  man  actually  engaged  in 
publishing.  We  know  especially  by  experience 
that  a  system  which  demands  blind  confidence  on 
one  side  not  only  invites  a  betrayal  of  that  confi- 
dence, but  must  inevitably  lead  to  such  a  betrayal. 
There  is  no  body  of  men  in  the  world  who  can 
be  trusted  not  to  cheat  should  a  man  say  to  them, 
"  Take  my  property.  Do  what  you  please  with 
it.  Bring  me  what  you  like  for  my  share.  I 
shall  never  inquire  into  your  statements  or  audit 
your  accounts."  This  is  what  has  been  done, 
and  is  still  done  every  day.  That  man  invites 
fraud  who  says  beforehand  that  he  will  not  ques- 
tion or  doubt  the  returns. 

This  being  so,  we  were  not  at  all  surprised  to 
find  that  frauds  were  being  carried  on  very  exten- 
sively. Not  universally.  We  have  always  most 
carefully  made  that  necessary  reservation.  We  have 
been  constantly  accused  of  charging  all  publishers 
as  a  body  with  dishonesty.  I  say  again,  that  five 
or  six  years  ago,  when  we  had  acquired  some  knowl- 
edge of  what  was  going  on,  we  found  —  with  this 
reservation  always  carefully  insisted  upon  —  a  wide- 
spread practice  of  fraudulent  accounts.     Is  it  neces- 

232 


SIR      SALTER      B  ES  A  N  T 

sary  to  enumerate  the  methods  pursued,  which  were 
as  various  as  the  tricks  of  the  conjurer?  There 
was  the  overcharge  of  the  cost  of  production  —  very- 
common  indeed  ;  there  was  the  charge  for  advertise- 
ments which  never  appeared,  or  were  exchanged 
and  never  paid  for  —  also  very  common  ;  there  was 
the  insertion  of  an  enormous  estimate  of  cost  of 
production  in  the  agreement,  which  the  author,, 
after  he  had  signed,  could  not  set  aside  ;  there  were 
clauses  in  the  agreement  so  worded  and  so  mixed 
up  that  the  author  did  not  know  what  he  gave 
away  ;  there  were  charges  for  things  that  ought  not 
to  be  charged  —  publisher's  reader,  publisher's  lists, 
publisher's  travellers,  all  kinds  of  things  ;  there  was 
the  royalty  so  designed  as  to  give  three  times  and 
four  times  —  any  number  of  times  —  to  the  pub- 
lisher that  it  gave  to  the  author ;  there  was  the  pur- 
chase of  a  valuable  work  for  next  to  nothing.  One 
could  find  instances  by  the  dozen  on  looking  into 
the  Society's  case  books,  but  very  considerable  im- 
provement has  taken  place  of  late  in  respect  to 
these  methods,  solely  in  consequence  of  the  action 
of  the  Society. 

Without  going  into  court  more  than  once  or 
twice  (though  in  a  great  many  instances  an  action 
has  been  proposed  as  an  alternative),  we  have  suc- 
ceeded not  only  in  procuring  substantial  justice  in 
many  cases  for  our  clients,  but  we  have  also  done  a 
great  deal  to  put  a  stop  to  the  former  prevalent 
abuses.  A  point  in  our  favour  has  been  the  ex- 
treme   moderation    of    our    demands.     We    have 

233 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

claimed,  in  fact,  so  far,  only  three  points  :  (i)  That 
we  must  have  the  right  of  audit ;  (2)  that  in  any 
agreement  based  on  royalties  we  must  know  what 
the  agreement  gives  to  either  side ;  and  (3)  that 
there  must  be  no  secret  profits.  We  prepared  and 
published  a  book,  the  like  of  which,  it  is  certain, 
has  never  before  appeared  in  any  country.  It  was 
called  the  Methods  of  Publishing.  In  this  book  a 
specimen  of  every  known  form  of  publishing  was 
taken  from  agreements  and  accounts  actually  in  our 
possession.  Nothing  was  invented ;  they  were 
actual  real  agreements  that  were  quoted.  With 
each  agreement  the  meaning  of  the  various  clauses 
was  explained.  It  is  a  book  of  the  greatest  value 
to  every  one  who  wants  to  know  how  to  conduct 
his  own  business  for  himself,  and  desires  to  avoid 
pitfalls  and  traps  and  the  many  dangers  pointed  out. 
This  book,  however,  useful  as  it  was,  proved  to  be 
insufficient.  There  was  still  wanting  something  to 
supplement  the  information  contained  in  it.  By 
the  comparison  of  any  agreement  submitted  to  an 
author  with  the  corresponding  agreement  contained 
in  this  book,  he  might  come  to  a  pretty  safe  conclu- 
sion as  to  the  value  or  fairness  of  his  own.  But  he 
wanted  more  ;  he  wanted  to  know,  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible, the  cost  of  producing  his  own  book,  the  man- 
ner in  which  it  was  placed  upon  the  market,  and 
the  results  under  certain  given  conditions.  That 
information  we  found  for  him.  It  cost  us  a  very 
great  deal  of  patience  and  of  time.  You  can  hardly 
understand  the  trouble  it  was  to  get  at  the  figures ; 

234 


SIR      TVALTER      BESANT 

at  last  they  were  obtained  and  passed  by  three  — 
or  perhaps  four  —  firms  of  responsible  printers.  Of 
course,  we  do  not  say  that  we  have  found  the  exact 
cost,  because  there  is  no  such  thing.  A  printer's 
bill  is  elastic,  and  varies  from  firm  to  firm,  and  time 
to  time;  but  the  figures  are,  if  anything,  above  the 
mark,  and  some  accounts  have  been  sent  in  to  us 
where  the  details  were  below  our  figures. 

By  the  publication  of  this  book,  called  the  Cost 
of  Production,  together  with  that  called  the  Methods 
of  Publication^  we  have,  I  submit,  rendered  a  very 
signal  service  to  the  independence  of  the  author. 
He  now  understands  what  kind  of  property  he  holds 
in  his  MS.  He  can  say,  "  Should  this  work  prove 
successful  —  commercially  successful  —  it  will  pro- 
duce so  much  for  the  first  thousand,  so  much  for  the 
second,  and  so  on.  What  share  does  the  publisher 
claim  for  the  distribution,  collection,  and  adminis- 
tration of  this  work  ?  "  At  all  events,  if  circum- 
stances oblige  him  to  take  what  is  unfair,  he  will 
know  it;  he  will  speak  of  it  —  the  thing  will  be- 
come noised  abroad,  the  reputation  of  that  publisher 
will  sufi^er.  What  we  have  done  is  to  throw  light 
—  always  more  and  more  light  —  into  every  part 
and  every  detail  of  our  own  business.  We  have 
enabled  authors,  in  a  word,  to  meet  men  of 
business  as   men  of  business. 

I  hasten  to  complete  this  history  by  the  brief 
record  of  the  points  of  less  importance.  We  have 
ascertained,  by  an  inquiry  conducted  for  us  in  the 
most  important  colonies,  that  there  was,  before  the 

235 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

passing  of  the  American  Copyright  Act,  a  consider- 
able trade  in  pirated  books.  We  have  called  the 
attention  of  the  Minister  for  the  Colonies  to  this 
trade,  and  steps  have  been  taken  to  stop  the  piracy. 
We  have  investigated  and  published  an  account  of 
the  administration  of  the  Civil  List  from  its  begin- 
ning. We  have  founded  for  our  own  purposes 
a  paper  which  is  devoted  entirely  to  the  accumu- 
lation of  facts  and  the  dissemination  of  teaching 
in  our  own  business  relations. 

Our  office  has  become  the  recognised  refuge  for 
all  who  are  in  trouble  or  doubt.  People  come  to 
us  for  advice  on  all  subjects  connected  with  literary 
property.  The  cases  always  in  the  secretary's  hands 
average  at  any  moment  about  a  dozen.  As  fast  as 
one  is  cleared  off,  another  one  comes  in.  The  cor- 
respondence increases  daily  ;  from  all  parts  of  the 
countrv  and  from  the  colonies  the  letters  pour  in. 

We  have  been  accused  of  fostering  the  ambitions 
of  the  incapable,  and  of  helping  to  flood  the  market 
with  trash.  Far  from  it ;  we  dissuade  by  every 
means  in  our  power  the  incapable ;  we  have  readers 
who  give  them  the  plain  truth  ;  we  advertise  warn- 
ings against  paying  for  the  publication  of  MSS. 
But  I  confess  that  we  can  do  little  to  keep  down  the 
swelling  stream  of  aspirants.  Thousands  of  pens 
are  flying  over  the  paper  at  this  moment  and  every 
moment,  producing  bad  novels  and  worse  poetry. 
We  check  some  of  them  ;  the  rest  must  learn  by 
bitter  disappointment.  Do  not,  however,  let  us  talk 
about  flooding  the  market ;    that  is  a  mere  conven- 

236 


SIR      IVALTER      BESANT 

tlonal  phrase.  Thousands  of  bad  books  may  be 
produced,  but  they  never  get  circulated ;  nobody 
buys  them  ;  they  drop  still-born  from  the  press ; 
they  swell    the  statistics   alone. 

To  sum  up,  we  have  taken  steps  to  reduce  our 
copyright  law  from  chaos  to  order ;  we  have  investi- 
gated and  made  public  the  various  methods  of 
publishing,  and  have  shown  what  each  means  ;  we 
have  placed  in  the  hands  of  every  author  the  means 
of  ascertaining  for  himself  what  his  property  may 
mean;  we  have  examined  and  exposed  the  facts 
connected  with  the  Civil  Pension  List.  What  do 
we  intend  to  do  in  the  future  ?  Here  I  must  speak 
for  myself.  First,  I  look  for  the  enlargement  of 
the  Society  to  four  times,  ten  times,  its  present 
numbers.  Every  one  who  writes  —  the  journalists 
who  lead  the  thought  of  the  world,  the  teachers  of 
all  kinds,  the  scientific  men,  the  medical  men,  the 
theologians,  the  creators  in  imaginative  work  — 
every  one  who  writes  a  single  book  should  consider 
it  his  duty  to  belong  to  us.  With  this  extension 
of  our  numbers  we  shall  create  funds  for  special 
purposes,  for  fighting  actions  if  necessary.  There 
are  certain  disputed  points  which  can  only  be  settled 
in  the  courts.  We  shall  give  our  journal  wider 
aims. 

I  should  very  much  like  to  see  established  an 
institute  akin  to  the  Law  Institute,  but  what  I 
want,  even  more  than  the  institute,  is  a  Pension 
Fund.  That,  I  see  plainly,  is  above  all  to  be  de- 
sired.     I  want  a  Pension   Fund  such  as  that  which 

237 


A  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r     OF 

the  Societe  des  Gens  de  Lettres  in  Paris  has  estab- 
hshed,  where  every  one  in  his  turn  receives  a  pension, 
and  it  is  not  a  dole  or  a  charity,  but  a  right.  The 
member  is  not  obhged  to  take  that  pension  ;  if  he 
chooses,  he  can  refuse  it ;  then  it  goes  to  swell  the 
pensions  of  those  who  want  the  assistance.  We 
have  been  too  much  occupied  during  these  last  years 
for  this  fund  to  be  so  much  as  started.  Perhaps, 
however,  the  committee  may  see  their  way  at  no 
distant  period  to  attempt  the  thing.  A  Pension 
Fund  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the  completion  of 
the  independence  of  literature.^ 

There  were  many  other  societies  in  which  I  was 
interested.  Those  which  were  strictly  philanthropic 
I  reserve  for  another  chapter.  I  was  initiated  into 
freemasonry  as  far  back  as  1862.  On  my  return  to 
England  I  joined  a  lodge.  I  have  never  been  an 
enthusiast  for  the  rites  and  ceremonies  of  the  craft, 
but  I  have  always  understood  its  great  capabilities 
as  a  social  and  religious  force.  Properly  carried  out, 
the  freemason  has  friends  everywhere,  and  in  case 
of  need,  brethren  of  the  same  fraternity  are  bound 
by  vow  to  assist  him.  Every  lodge  is  a  benefit  club ; 
the  members  are  bound  to  each  other  by  the  vows 
and  obligations  of  a  mediaeval  guild.  The  craft  has 
developed  a  species  of  doctrine,  vague  and  without 
a  defined  creed,  which  is  to  some  of  its  members  a 
veritable  religion.  It  is,  above  all,  a  religion  which 
requires  no  priest,  no  Church  standing  between  man 

1  The  Pension  Fund  of  the  Society  of  Authors  has  since  been  started. 
238 


SIR     TV  A  LT  E  R     B  E  S  A  N  T 

and  his  Creator ;  it  does  not  recognise  any  super- 
stitious or  supernatural  claims.  It  is  therefore  a 
bulwark  against  the  Roman  Catholic  religion  or  any 
Romanising  practices;  and,  as  such,  is  very  properly 
excommunicated  by  the  Roman  Catholic  Church. 

The  origins  of  Masonry  are  imperfectly  under- 
stood. This  I  had  always  felt  to  be  a  serious  defect, 
although,  the  craft  being  what  it  is  acknowledged  to 
be,  the  origin  is  not  an  essential  point.  However, 
there  was  existing  a  small  —  a  very  small  —  society 
called  the  Masonic  Archaeological  Institute.  Of 
this  I  became  the  honorary  secretary.  We  had 
papers  read ;  some  of  them  were  useful,  some  were 
rubbish  ;  after  a  while  I  handed  over  the  papers  and 
my  office  to  Mr.  Haliburton,  of  Nova  Scotia,  who 
was  then  living  in  London,  and  I  heard  no  more 
about  the  institute,  which  died  a  natural  death. 
But  some  eighteen  years  later  there  was  established 
an  archaeological  lodge  consisting  of  nine  persons, 
of  whom  I  was  one.  It  was  proposed  to  carry  this 
on  as  a  medium  for  historical  papers  on  all  points 
connected  with  the  craft.  The  secretary,  one  of  the 
nine,  has  developed  this  lodge  until  it  has,  besides 
its  original  members,  some  two  thousand  corre- 
sponding members  scattered  about  the  whole  world. 
Once  at  Albany,  New  York,  I  received  a  visit  from 
one  of  the  corresponding  members,  who  got  together 
a  few  Freemasons  of  that  city  to  give  me  a  welcome. 
The  thing  was  a  trifle ;  but  it  made  me  realise  the 
great  success  and  the  widespread  influence  of  the 
Lodge  "  Quatuor  Coronati." 

239 


A  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r     OF 

One  more  society.  In  1879  or  1880  a  little 
company  of  a  dozen  or  so  met  at  a  certain  tavern 
and  dined  together,  the  dinner  being  the  foundation 
of  the  Rabelais  Club.  This  for  eight  years  or  so 
was  a  highly  flourishing  club.  We  dined  together 
about  six  times  a  year ;  we  had  no  speeches  and  but 
one  toast  —  "The  Master."  We  mustered  some 
seventy  or  eighty  members,  and  we  used  to  lay  on 
the  table  leaflets,  verses,  and  all  kinds  of  hterary 
triflings.  These  were  afterwards  collected  and 
formed  three  volumes  called  Recreations  of  the  Ra- 
belais Cluby  only  a  hundred  copies  of  each  being 
printed.  Among  the  members  were  Edwin  Abbey, 
R.  C.  Christie  (author  of  the  life  of  Etienne  Dolet), 
George  Du  Maurier,  Thomas  Hardy,  Bret  Harte, 
Colonel  John  Hay,  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  Henry 
Irving,  Henry  James,  C.  G.  Leland,  Earl  Lytton, 
Lord  Houghton,  James  Payn,  J.  E.  Millais,  Pro- 
fessor Palmer,  Sir  Frederick  Pollock,  Walter  Pol- 
lock, Saintsbury,  Sala,  W.  F.  Smith  (latest  and  best 
translator  of  Rabelais),  R.  Louis  Stevenson,  Alma- 
Tadema,  Toole,  Herbert  Stephen,  H.  D.  Traill, 
and  Woolner. 

The  Recreations  contain  a  good  deal  that  is  in- 
different and  a  good  deal  that  is  good.  Among  the 
latter  is  some  truly  excellent  fooling  by  Sir  Frederick 
Pollock;  there  are  verses  by  Du  Maurier;  there 
are  verses  by  Professor  Palmer  —  notably  a  short 
collection  called  "  Arabesques  from  the  Bazaars," 
supposed  to  be  narrated  by  one  Colonel  Abdullah. 
Of  these  I  quote  one  called :  — 

240 


SIR      JVALTER     BESJNT 

THE  STORY  OF   THE   ASTROLOGER. 

**  Alack  a  day,  for  the  days  of  old 

When  heads  were  clever  and  hearts  were  true. 
And  a  Caliph  scattered  stores  of  gold 
On  men,  my  All,  like  me  and  you. 

•'  Haroun  was  moody,  Haroun  was  sad. 
And  he  drank  a  glass  of  wine  or  two  ; 
But  it  only  seemed  to  make  him  mad, 

And  the  cup  at  the  Sakis'  head  he  threw. 

"  Came  Yahya  ^  in  ;   and  he  dodged  the  glass 
That  all  too  near  his  turban  flew  ; 
And  he  bowed  his  head,  and  he  said,  'Alas! 
Your  Majesty  seems  in  a  pretty  stew  ! ' 

*'  '  And  well  I  may,'  the  monarch  said ; 

*  And  so,  my  worthy  friend,  would  you. 
If  you  knew  that  you  must  needs  be  dead 

And  buried,  perhaps,  in  a  day  or  two. 

" '  For  the  man  who  writes  the  almanacks  — 
Ez  Zadkiel,  a  learned  Jew  — 
Has  found,  amongst  other  distressing  facts. 
That  the  days  I  have  left  upon  earth  are  few. 

"  *  Call  up  the  villain!  '  the  vizier  cried, 

*  That  he  may  have  the  reward  that 's  due. 
For  having,  the  infidel,  prophesied 

A  thing  that  is  plainly  quite  untrue.' 

"  The  Caliph  waved  his  hand,  and  soon 
A  dozen  dusky  eunuchs  flew  ; 
And  back  in  a  trice  before  Haroun 
They  set  the  horoscopic  Jew. 

1  Yahya  the  Barmecide  was  Haroun  a!  Raschid's  Prime  Minister. 
He  was  the  father  of  Jaafer,  whose   incognito   walks   through    Bagdad 
are  a  favourite  theme  in  T/ie  Arabian  Nights. 
i6  241 


AUTOBIOGRAPHT      OF 

**  *  Now  tell  me,  sirrah  !  '  says  Yahya,  *  since 
From  astral  knowledge  so  well  you  knew 
The  term  of  the  life  of  our  sovereign  prince. 
How  many  years  are  left  to  you  ?  ' 

"  *  May  Allah  lengthen  the  vizier's  days  ! 
His  Highness'  loss  all  men  would  rue  ; 
Some  eighty  years,  my  planet  says. 
Is  the  number  that  I  shall  reach  unto.* 

**  A  single  stroke  of  Yahya's  sword 

Has  severed  the  Jew's  neck  quite  clean  through — • 
*  Now  tell  me,  sire,  if  the  fellow's  word 
Seems,  after  that,  in  the  least  bit  true  ? ' 

'*  Haroun  he  smiled,  and  a  purse  of  gold 
He  handed  over  to  Yahya  true  ; 
And  the  heedless  corpse,  all  white  and  cold. 
The  eunuchs  in  the  gutter  threw. 

"  What  loyalty  that  act  displays. 

Combined  with  a  sense  of  humour  too  — 
Ah,  Ali  !  those  were  palmy  days  ! 

And  those  Barmecides,  what  a  lot  they  knew  ! " 

In  1889  the  Rabelais  Club  fell  to  pieces.  Perhaps 
we  had  gone  on  long  enough ;  perhaps  we  spoiled 
the  club  by  admitting  visitors.  However,  the  club 
languished  and  died. 


242 


SIR     fVJLTER      BESANT 


Chapter  XIII 

PHILANTHROPIC  WORK 

IT  is  instructive  to  consider  how  I  dropped  with- 
out any  effort  on  my  own  part,  even  uncon- 
sciously, into  philanthropic  work  and  effort. 

It  all  began  with  a  novel.  In  1880  and  in  1881 
I  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  walking  about  the  mean 
monotony  of  the  East  End  of  London.  It  was  not 
a  new  field  to  me.  That  is  to  say,  I  had  already 
seen  some  of  it  —  the  river-side,  Hackney,  White- 
chapel,  and  Bethnal  Green  ;  but  I  had  never  before 
realised  the  vast  extent  of  the  eastern  city,  its 
wonderful  collection  of  human  creatures ;  its  pos- 
sibilities ;  the  romance  that  lies  beneath  its  mono- 
tony ;  the  tragedies  and  the  comedies,  the  dramas 
that  are  always  playing  themselves  out  in  this  huge 
hive  of  working  bees. 

Gradually,  out  of  the  whole,  as  sometimes  happens 
when  the  gods  are  favourable,  a  few  figures  detached 
themselves  from  the  crowd  and  stood  before  me  to 
be  drawn.  And  presently  I  understood  that  one  of 
the  things  very  much  wanted  in  this  great  place  was 
a  centre  of  organised  recreation,  orderly  amusement, 
and  intellectual  and  artistic  culture.  So  I  pictured 
an  heiress  going  down  to  the  place  under  the  disguise 
of  a  dressmaker,  and  I  showed  how  little  by  little 

243 


AUTOBIOGRJPHT     OF 

the  same  idea  was  forced  upon  her ;  how  she  was 
aided  in  this  discovery  by  a  young  man  who  by 
birth,  not  by  education,  belonged  to  the  place ;  and 
how  in  obedience  to  their  invitation  the  Palace  of 
Delight  arose.  The  rest  has  been  told  a  hundred 
times.  Sir  Edmund  Currie,  trying  to  create  such  a 
place,  used  the  book  as  a  text-book.  The  Palace 
was  built.      It  was  opened  in  1887. 

I  have  often  been  asked  what  the  Palace  has 
done.  It  has  done  a  great  deal ;  but  it  has  not  done 
one-quarter,  not  one-tenth  part,  of  what  it  might 
have  done.  It  was  built  and  furnished  with  a  noble 
hall,  a  swimming  bath,  a  splendid  organ,  a  complete 
gymnasium,  one  of  the  finest  hbrary  buildings  in 
London,  a  winter  garden,  art  schools,  and  a  lecture 
room.  Unfortunately  a  polytechnic  was  tacked  on 
to  it ;  the  original  idea  of  a  place  of  recreation  was 
mixed  up  with  a  place  of  education. 

More  money  was  wanted.  I  hoped  that  Sir 
Edmund,  who  was  greatly  respected  in  the  City, 
would,  as  he  half  promised,  boom  it  in  the  City. 
But  he  did  not.  However,  we  started  with  all  the 
things  mentioned  above,  and  with  billiard-rooms, 
with  a  girls'  social  side,  with  a  debating  society, 
with  clubs  for  all  kinds  of  things  —  cricket,  foot- 
ball, rambles,  and  the  like ;  we  had  delightful  balls 
in  the  great  hall,  we  had  concerts  and  organ  recitals, 
the  girls  gave  dances  in  their  social  rooms  ;  there 
was  a  literary  society  ;  we  had  lectures  and  entertain- 
ments, orchestral  performances  and  part  singing ; 
nothing   could   have    been    better    than    our    start. 

244 


SIR     IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

We  had  a  library  committee,  of  which  I  was  the 
chairman.  We  collected  together  about  fifteen 
thousand  volumes  —  that  is  to  say,  we  made  a  most 
excellent  beginning.  Everything  did  not  go  on 
quite  well.  At  the  billiard  tables,  which  were  very 
popular,  the  young  men  took  to  betting,  and  it 
was  thought  best  to  stop  billiards  altogether.  The 
literary  club  proved  a  dead  failure;  not  a  soul, 
while  I  was  connected  with  the  Palace,  showed  the 
least  literary  ability  or  ambition.  Still  the  suc- 
cesses far  outweighed  the  failures. 

Then  we  heard  that  the  Drapers'  Company  pro- 
posed to  take  over  the  Palace  and  to  run  it  at 
their  own  cost  and  expense.  I  have  no  wish  to  ap- 
pear to  be  bringing  charges  against  the  Drapers' 
Company.  Let  me,  however,  instance  their  treat- 
ment of  the  library.  We  gave  them,  as  I  said,  fif- 
teen thousand  volumes  in  good  condition.  We  had 
three  ladies  as  librarians  —  most  efficient  librarians 
they  were.  They  ruled  over  the  rough  people 
who  came  to  the  library  with  a  gentle  but  a  steady 
hand.  There  was  no  such  thing  as  a  row  while 
they  were  there.  Now,  such  a  library  costs,  in  the 
maintenance  of  the  fabric,  in  the  binding  and  pre- 
servation of  the  books,  in  salaries,  wages,  lights, 
cleaning,  newspapers  and  magazines,  from  ^i,ooo 
to  ^1,200  a  year.  The  Company  took  over  the 
Palace  on  an  understanding  that  it  should  be  kept 
up.  The  library  was  an  integral  part  of  the 
Palace.  What  have  they  done  ?  They  have  dis- 
missed the  librarians,  they  have  refused  the  money 

245 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

necessary  for  binding  and  preserving  the  books, 
they  have  bought  no  new  books  and  have  made 
no  appeal  for  any,  they  have  appointed  no  library 
committee,  they  have  reduced  the  staff  to  a  man  and 
a  boy.  All  those  books  out  of  our  fifteen  thou- 
sand which  are  in  demand  are  dropping  to  pieces ; 
and  the  Company  are  trying  to  hand  over  the  lovely 
building,  which  is,  I  say,  an  integral  part  of  the 
Palace,  to  the  poverty-stricken  ratepayers  of  the 
parish.     So  much  for  the  library. 

As  regards  the  recreative  side,  the  Company  can- 
not put  down  the  concerts  ;  but  they  have  stopped 
the  baths,  they  have  closed  the  winter  gardens,  they 
have  stopped  the  girls'  social  side  ;  they  have  turned 
the  place  into  a  polytechnic  and  nothing  else  — 
except  for  one  or  two  things  which  they  cannot 
prevent. 

However,  the  Palace  has  raised  the  standard  of 
music  enormously  ;  the  people  know  and  appreciate 
good  music.  They  have  had  some  good  exhibi- 
tions of  pictures  and  of  industries  ;  and  there  is  an 
excellent  polytechnic  in  the  building.  But  alas  ! 
alas  !  what  might  not  the  Palace  have  done  for  the 
people  if  the  original  design  had  been  carried  out, 
if  no  educational  side  had  been  attached,  and  if  the 
Drapers'  Company  had  never  touched  it  ? 

Three  years  after  the  appearance  of  the  novel  in 
which  the  Palace  of  Delight  was  described,  I  wrote 
another  touching  a  note  of  deeper  resonance.  This 
book  was  the  most  truthful  of  anything  that  I  have 
ever  written.     It  was  called  Children  of  Gibeon.     It 

246 


SIR     WALTER     B  ES  A  NT 

offered  the  daily  life  and  the  manners  —  so  far  as 
they  can  be  offered  without  offensive  and  useless 
realism  —  of  the  girls  who  do  the  rougher  and 
coarser  work  of  sewing  in  their  own  lodgings.  I 
say  that  this  book  was  as  truthful  as  a  long  and 
patient  investigation  could  make  it.  I  knew  every 
street  in  Hoxton ;  I  knew  also  every  street  in 
Ratcliffe  ;  I  had  been  about  among  the  people  day 
after  day  and  week  after  week — neglecting  almost 
everything  else.  The  thing  was  absorbing.  I  had 
stood  in  the  miserable  back  room  where  the  woman 
living  by  herself — the  grey-haired  elderly  woman, 
all  alone  in  that  awful  cell,  with  no  furniture  but 
sacking  on  the  floor  —  is  stitching  away  for  bare 
life.  I  had  sat  among  the  girls  whom  I  described 
—  three  in  a  room,  with  the  one  broad  bed  for 
the  three  —  also  stitching  away  for  bare  life.  I  had 
seen  the  widow  and  the  daughter  hot-pressing, 
stitching,  their  fingers  flying  for  bare  life.  All 
these  things  and  people  I  saw  over  and  over  again 
till  my  heart  was  sore  and  my  brain  was  weary  with 
the  contemplation  of  so  much  misery.  And  then  I 
sat  down  to  write.  Did  the  book  do  any  good  ?  I 
do  not  know.  I  heard  among  the  Hoxton  folk 
that  certain  firms  which  had  been  in  the  habit  of 
fining  their  girls  for  small  offences  were  ashamed  to 
own  that  this  was  their  practice,  and  refrained.  So 
far  it  was  useful  in  abolishing  a  cruel  and  tyrannical 
act  of  oppression.  What  else  it  did  I  know  not. 
Perhaps  it  made  employers  more  careful  in  their 
treatment  of  the  girls,  more  considerate,  kinder  in 

247 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

speech  and  manner.  That  it  ran  up  wages  I  cannot 
believe,  because  sentiment  has  nothing  to  do  with 
wages. 

The  book,  however,  introduced  me  to  certain 
clubs  of  working  girls.  These  clubs,  run  by  ladies, 
are  carrying  on  a  noble  work.  Unfortunately  there 
are  not  enough  of  them,  and  they  reach  compara- 
tively few  of  the  class  for  whom  they  are  designed. 
They  exact  from  the  ladies  who  conduct  them  the 
sacrifice  of  all  their  evenings  —  often  of  all  their 
lives.  It  is  a  great  deal  to  ask  of  ladies.  On  the 
other  hand  they  have  their  reward  in  the  salvation 
and  the  rescue  of  the  girls.  It  is  difficult  to  think 
of  any  sacrifice  which  a  woman  can  make,  that  is 
more  entirely  lovely  and  more  truly  Christian,  than 
to  undertake  the  management  of  such  a  girls'  club. 
What  is  the  life  of  a  nun,  what  the  life  of  a  sister 
immured  in  a  cloister,  compared  with  the  life  of  a 
woman  whose  work  and  wage  are  wholly  given  to 
her  sister,  the  girl  who  makes  the  buttonhole  at  the 
starvation  wage  of  elevenpence-halfpenny  a  gross  ? 

There  followed  on  the  Children  of  Gibeon  an 
attempt  at  organising  co-operation  for  working 
women.  The  attempt  was  made  by  Mrs.  Heck- 
ford,  who,  with  her  husband,  founded  the  Chil- 
dren's Hospital  at  Poplar.  She  started  with  a 
small  house  in  or  near  Cable  Street,  and  with  a 
dozen  girls.  She  began  very  well.  They  made 
shirts,  they  obeyed  the  directress,  there  was  a  fore- 
woman in  whom  Mrs.  Heckford  placed  unbounded 
trust.     One  day  she  found  that  this  forewoman  had 

248 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 

betrayed  her  confidence  ;  she  had  gone  off,  taking 
with  her  half  the  girls,  in  order  to  start  on  her  own 
account  a  sweating  establishment.  By  what  persua- 
sions she  induced  the  girls  to  leave  a  place  where 
thev  were  treated  with  the  greatest  kindness  and 
personal  affection  and  were  earning  half  as  much 
again  as  in  a  sweater's  den,  I  know  not.  Fear  of 
giving  offence,  and  of  being  refused  work  by  the 
sweater,  if  they  should  be  thrown  out  of  work,  was 
probably  the  leading  motive.  However,  half  the 
girls  went  away.  Then  Mrs.  Heckford  took  a 
larger  house  and  made  a  bid  for  different  kinds  of 
business.  Well,  the  attempt  failed ;  the  women 
were  not  educated  to  co-operation ;  sweating  they 
understood.  They  would  like  themselves  to  be- 
come sweaters  if  they  could ;  the  sweater,  remem- 
ber, is  as  a  rule  only  one  degree  better  off  than  the 
women  sweated,  very  nearly  as  poor,  very  nearly  as 
miserable;  but  he,  or  she,  represents  the  first  up- 
ward step.  From  being  a  sweater  to  the  trade,  one 
may  become  a  master  of  sweaters. 

The  next  step,  so  far  as  I  remember,  was  the 
foundation  of  a  committee  to  consider  the  whole 
question  of  working  women  and  their  pay.  We 
went,  we  talked ;  certain  persons  gave  us  small 
sums,  which  we  spent  in  accumulating  facts  and 
evidence.  This  evidence  we  printed.  Then  we 
discovered  that  Mr.  Charles  Booth  was  doing  on  a 
large  and  fully  organised  scale  what  we  were  attempt- 
ing on  a  small  and  limited  scale.  I  have  now,  some- 
where, the  bundle  of  printed  tables  which  represent 

2-19 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

our   work.      But    the    committee's    work    came    to 
nothing  more. 

Meantime,  as  was  inevitable,  considering  that  I 
had  so  many  things  to  do,  I  lost  touch  with  H  ox- 
ton  and  Stepney.  1  dropped  out  of  the  governing 
body  of  the  People's  Palace.  In  fact,  they  did  not 
re-elect  me;  I  suppose  because  I  so  seldom  attended 
the  meetings,  at  which  the  Drapers'  Company  more 
and  more  carried  matters  their  own  way  —  which 
was  not  the  way  for  which  the  Palace  was  designed. 
There  was,  however,  one  place  in  which  I  continued 
to  take  a  personal  interest.  It  was  the  parish  of 
St.  James's,  Ratcliffe,  then  under  the  charge  of  the 
Rev.  R.  K.  Arbuthnot.  It  is  certainly  one  of  the 
poorest  parishes  in  all  London.  It  consisted,  until 
a  few  streets  were  pulled  down,  of  about  eight 
thousand  people.  Of  these,  three-fourths  were 
Roman  Catholics  and  Irish,  but  there  was  no  divi- 
sion among  the  people  on  account  of  religion.  The 
parish  contained  a  church,  a  "  mission  church " 
under  the  arches,  schools,  a  "  doss-house  "  for  the 
destitute,  a  Quakers'  meeting-house  on  the  edge  of 
the  boundary  —  perhaps,  indeed,  belonging  to  an- 
other parish.  There  were  in  the  parish  no  profes- 
sional men,  no  doctor  even ;  no  Roman  Catholic 
chapel  ;  and  in  not  a  single  house  except  those  of 
the  clergy  was  there  a  servant.  The  parish  was 
"  run  "  by  the  clergy,  and  by  the  ladies  who  lived 
in,  and  worked  for,  the  place,  giving  all  their  work, 
all  their  thoughts,  and  all  their  lives  to  the  people. 
They  had    a   girls'   club    numbering   from  forty    to 

250 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R      B  E  S  A  NT 

fifty.  The  girls  came  to  the  club  every  night ; 
they  talked,  they  sang,  they  danced,  they  learned 
needlework,  they  were  on  terms  of  friendliness  and 
personal  affection  with  the  leaders ;  every  night  they 
had  three  hours'  quiet,  learning  unconsciously  les- 
sons of  self-respect  and  order.  At  ten,  or  there- 
abouts, when  prayers  began,  they  all  got  up  and 
stepped  out  —  quietly,  not  to  give  offence ;  and 
went  back  to  Brook  Street,  their  boulevard,  where 
they  met  their  young  men,  and  walked  about  arm 
in  arm  working  off  some  of  their  animal  spirits. 

The  ladies  at  one  time  had  also  a  lads'  club  ;  it 
was  carried  on  by  one  lady  who  had  an  extraordi- 
nary power  of  influencing  these  lads.  They  were 
fellows  of  fourteen  to  eighteen,  great  hulking  fel- 
lows. They  mostly  worked  at  odd  jobs  along  the 
river-side ;  they  were  full  of  boisterous  spirits  and 
ready  at  any  moment  to  make  hay  of  everything  in 
the  club.  But  they  did  not ;  the  slim  delicate  girl 
restrained  them.  She  made  them  put  on  the  gloves 
with  each  other,  and  that  shook  the  devil  out  of 
them  for  the  evening;  then  she  read  to  them,  told 
them  stories,  made  them  play  at  games,  and  per- 
suaded them  to  be  content  and  happy  in  the  quiet 
room  with  warmth  and  light.  The  place  was  the 
rickety  old  warehouse  which  had  been  Mrs.  Heck- 
ford's  first  Children's  Hospital.  But  the  place  was 
condemned  —  not  before  it  was  time  ;  the  flooring 
had  become  rotten,  the  whole  house  threatened  to 
come  down.  The  boys  were  turned  out,  and  the 
house   is  now,  I   believe,  with  the  whole  street  of 

251 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

crazy  warehouses  and  tumble-down  cottages,  under- 
mined. 

At  the  same  time  another  club  held  in  the  same 
place  was  destroyed.  This  was  the  children's  play- 
house. The  principal  room  of  the  house  —  that 
on  the  ground  floor  —  had  been  taken  over  by  the 
same  lady  for  the  little  children.  When  they  came 
out  of  school  at  four  o'clock,  there  was  nowhere  for 
them  to  go.  Therefore,  in  the  cold  and  dark 
winter  evenings,  in  the  rain  and  snow  and  frost, 
these  little  mites  played  about  in  the  street  and  on 
the  kerb.  Then  the  room  was  given  to  them, 
with  its  blazing  fire  and  its  gas ;  a  small  collection 
of  toys  was  made  for  them,  chiefly  of  the  india- 
rubber  kind,  which  they  could  not  break ;  and  from 
half-past  four  till  half-past  seven  they  would  play 
about  in  this  room  under  shelter  and  protected  from 
the  cold.  The  directress  was  with  them  most  of 
the  time  ;  she  concluded  every  evening  with  a  little 
service  held  in  an  upstairs  room,  which  she  had 
fitted  as  a  chapel.  One  of  her  rough  lads,  who 
would  otherwise  have  been  a  "  hooligan,"  played 
the  harmonium  for  them ;  they  sang  a  hymn  — 
these  tender  little  children  —  they  said  a  prayer  or 
two  on  their  knees,  and  so  went  home.  If  I  could 
afibrd  it,  I  would  build  for  the  parish  a  house,  with 
a  room  where  the  children  could  play  and  sing  and 
pray ;  and  a  room  where  the  lads  could  be  taken  in 
hand  without  fuss  or  parade  and  could  be  reduced 
to  order  by  the  beneficent  autocrat  who  ruled  over 
the  lads  of  Ratcliffe. 

252 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

Another  form  of  practical  philanthropy  which 
was  laid  upon  me,  so  to  speak,  was  caused  not  by 
anything  I  had  written,  but  by  the  action  of  a  friend. 
In  the  year  1879,  ^1  ^^^  friend  Charles  G.  Leland 
(Hans  Breitmann),  who  had  been  long  resident  in 
England  and  on  the  Continent,  returned  to  Phila- 
delphia, his  native  town ;  and  there  proceeded  to 
realise  a  much  cherished  project  of  establishing  an 
evening  school  for  the  teaching  and  practice  of  the 
minor  arts — wood-carving,  leather-work,  fretwork, 
work  in  iron  and  other  metals,  cabinet-making, 
weaving,  embroidery,  and  so  forth.  The  attempt 
proved  to  be  a  very  great  success  ;  very  shortly  he 
found  himself  with  classes  containing  in  the  aggre- 
gate four  hundred  pupils.  He  then  proposed  to 
me  that  we  should  start  a  similar  school  here  in 
England.  As  he  was  coming  back,  I  suggested 
that  we  should  wait  until  his  arrival.  We  did  so, 
and  on  his  return  we  started  the  Society  called  the 
Home  Arts  Association.  We  had  as  secretary  a 
lady  who  had  been  watching  the  work  from  the  be- 
ginning, was  familiar  with  every  aspect  of  it,  and 
understood  all  its  possibilities.  I  became  the  treas- 
urer, and  we  were  so  fortunate  as  to  interest  many 
influential  persons.  The  idea  was  taken  up  by 
ladies  of  the  highest  rank,  and  by  gentlemen  with 
large  estates  ;  our  schools  were  started  all  over  the 
country  ;  we  have  now,  I  believe,  over  five  hundred 
schools  ;  we  hold  an  annual  exhibition  of  work  ;  the 
demand  for  articles  such  as  we  produce  is  largely 
increasing ;   and  we  have  found  evening  occupation 

253 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

for  hundreds.  For  my  own  part,  after  doing  what 
I  could  for  the  Association  at  the  outset,  I  placed 
my  resignation  in  the  hands  of  the  committee,  to  be 
accepted  when  they  chose,  because  I  could  do  no 
more  for  them.  Let  it  be  understood,  however, 
that  the  movement  is  due  entirely  to  the  clear  fore- 
sight of  Charles  Leland,  and  that  the  success  of  the 
English  branch  is  due  mainly  to  the  intelligence  and 
the  resource  of  the  secretary,  Miss  Annie  Dymes. 

A  later  attempt  to  improve  the  position  of  women 
was  the  Women's  Bureau  of  Work.  I  had  long 
been  of  opinion  that  something  might  and  could  be 
done  for  women  by  way  of  creating  a  central  bureau, 
with  offices  all  over  the  country  and  in  the  colonies, 
where  women  who  want  work,  and  places  which 
want  women  workers,  might  be  registered,  classified, 
and  made  known.  Thus  I  imagined  an  association 
which  should  receive  the  names  of  women  wanting 
work  as  typewriters,  translators,  shorthand  clerks, 
accountants,  teachers,  artists,  designers,  etc.,  both  in 
London  and  in  the  provinces ;  and  would  take  note 
also  of  the  wants  of  workers.  The  names  and  the 
places  should  be  entered  in  books  for  every  centre, 
so  that  a  woman  in  London  might  hear  of  work 
that  would  suit  her  at  Liverpool  and  vice  versa. 
The  plan  had  the  merit  of  great  simplicity. 

After  a  little  private  talk  on  the  subject,  a  meeting 
was  held,  Mrs.  Creighton  being  in  the  chair.  I 
opened  the  subject  by  reading  a  paper;  there  was  a 
discussion ;  and  in  the  end  the  bureau  was  estab- 
lished.   I  went  to  Liverpool  and  addressed  a  meeting 

254 


SIR      IVJLTER     B  ES  A  N  T 

there  on  the  subject  and  to  Edinburgh  and  addressed 
another  meeting  there.  The  bureau  is  now  in  full 
working  order ;  I  have  not  heard  of  late  how  many- 
local  centres  are  established,  but  I  think  that  it  is 
only  a  question  of  time  before  a  network  of  branches 
is  spread  over  the  whole  country  and  the  colonies. 
After  all  the  failures  and  the  futile  talk  about  the 
work  of  women,  it  is  satisfactory  to  find  that  there 
is  something  practical  and  definite  actually  estab- 
lished for  their  benefit. 

Since  then,  there  are  many  causes,  which  seemed 
to  me  worthy  of  support,  which  I  have  been  invited 
to  assist  by  speaking  or  by  writing.  The  Ragged 
School  Union  is  one  —  a  most  admirable  associa- 
tion with  a  record  of  unmixed  success  and  practical 
charity.  I  wrote  a  paper  on  the  subject  for  the 
Contemporary  Review.  In  support  of  the  London 
Hospital  I  was  invited  to  write  a  paper,  and  did  so ; 
it  came  out  in  a  magazine  first,  it  being  understood 
that  I  was  not  to  be  paid  for  it,  but  that  I  could  use 
it  as  I  chose.  I  gave  it,  therefore,  to  the  hospital ; 
they  printed  it  as  a  pamphlet  and  circulated  it 
largely,  clearing  some  thousands  by  the  work. 
They  made  me  in  return  a  governor  of  the  hospital. 
Concerning  the  continuation  schools,  I  wrote  a 
paper,  also  for  the  Contemporary^  called  "  From 
Fourteen  to  Seventeen,"  pointing  out  the  dangers 
of  the  streets  for  the  young  people  after  their  work- 
ing hours.  The  continuation  schools  have  now 
been  established,  but  those  whose  zeal  outruns  their 
discretion  are  doing  their  best  to  discredit  them  by 

255 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

claiming,  practically,  the  right  to  keep  open  school 
on  all  subjects  free  of  charge  at  the  ratepayers' 
expense  —  and  for  the  whole  wide  world.  However, 
good  sense  will  in  the  end  prevail ;  such  a  claim 
reduced  to  plain  English  is  monstrous. 

I  have  had,  besides,  to  lecture  on  Art  in  the 
Home,  on  Women's  Ideals,  on  the  Science  of 
Recreation,  on  Free  Public  Libraries,  and  on  many 
other  topics  connected  with  social  life  and  philan- 
thropic work.  I  think  that  I  have  never  written 
or  spoken  on  any  subject  which  has  given  me  more 
satisfaction  than  on  the  social  work  of  the  Salvation 
Army.  It  is,  indeed,  amazing  to  observe  the  pre- 
judices against  the  people  of  that  great  Christian 
community.  Huxley  called  them  "  corybantic 
christians."  He  knew  only  the  external  side  of 
their  religion,  about  which  I  have  steadfastly  re- 
fused to  speak.  They  carry  on  a  religion  which 
wants  no  priest  and  has  no  ecclesiastical  pretension. 
Had  Huxley  considered  this  great  point,  he  would 
perhaps  have  been  a  little  more  tolerant  of  an  ag- 
gressiveness which  was  not  directed  against  himself 
or  his  own  class.  What  are  the  facts  ?  There  is 
a  vast  company  of  men  and  women  who  carry  on 
the  work  of  a  community  on  the  lines  laid  down 
for  them  all  over  the  English-speaking  countries. 
They  are  called  an  army  in  order  to  secure  the  dis- 
cipline and  the  obedience  of  an  army ;  they  obey 
orders  and  are  subject  to  discipline ;  they  are  poorly, 
very  poorly,  paid ;  they  can  make  nothing  extra  for 
themselves    in    any    way  whatever;  they  can    save 

256 


SIR      PFJLTER      B  ES  A  NT 

nothing ;  there  is  no  inducement  for  them  to  join 
on  account  of  the  pay ;  the  work  is  incessant,  and 
the  harder  they  work  the  more  are  they  promoted 
to  still  harder  work  ;  they  have  no  rewards  of  fame, 
or  name,  or  honour,  even  among  themselves  ;  what- 
ever the  results  of  their  work,  the  workers  them- 
selves get  no  reward  and  no  publicity ;  out  of  the 
whole  number,  not  one  has  a  banking  account ; 
they  live  with  great  plainness  in  poor  quarters  — 
sometimes  in  rough  neighbourhoods,  where  they  are 
knocked  about  and  ill-treated ;  they  give  up  what- 
ever luxuries  and  softness  of  life  they  may  have 
known.  Sometimes  the  funds  fail  ;  then  they  go 
without  any  money  —  Heaven  knows  how  —  for  a 
week  or  more.  Now  all  these  things  they  do  — 
for  what  reason  ?  In  the  hope  of  what  reward  ? 
For  the  love  of  God,  for  the  sake  of  Jesus  Christ 
—  and  for  no  other  reason  whatever.  Observe  that 
not  even  the  early  followers  of  Francis  lived  in 
greater  poverty ;  not  even  in  the  first  sprightly 
running  of  their  pristine  zeal,  did  they  endure 
more,  sacrifice  more,  suffer  more,  court  harder 
work  with  greater  obscurity. 

They  carry  on,  besides  their  religious  propaganda 
among  the  poorer  classes,  a  quiet  work  among  the 
"  submerged."  They  have  shelters  and  night  ref- 
uges ;  they  receive  the  prisoners  on  their  release ; 
they  bring  into  their  homes  both  the  most  miser- 
able, the  most  abandoned,  the  most  deeply  sunken 
women,  and  the  lads  and  girls  ripening  for  lives  of 
vice.     They  have  workshops  where  they  train  the 

17  257 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

poor  wrecks  and  the  ignorant  youths  in  trades  of  all 
kinds ;  they  have  labour  bureaux,  where  they  find 
work  for  those  people.  As  in  so  many  cases  a  re- 
turn to  the  land  is  the  best  thing  possible,  they 
have  a  farm  where  they  make  of  them  agricultural 
labourers,  brickmakers,  breeders  of  poultry,  horses, 
and  cattle.  I  repeat  that  no  Franciscan  monk  in 
his  newborn  zeal  could  excel  these  so-called  captains 
and  lieutenants  in  the  community  which  calls  itself 
the  Salvation  Army.  I  have  myself  taken  their  sta- 
tistics—  those  which  frankly  acknowledge  their  fail- 
ures—  and  I  have  shown  that  in  the  farm  alone 
there  is  room  for  many  more  failures,  and  that  an 
annual  gain  would  still  be  left.  Yet  the  world 
refuses  to  recognise  the  work  ;  they  listen  to,  and 
repeat,  lies.  They  allege,  falsely,  that  there  is  no 
balance  sheet  published  ;  they  pretend  that  the 
chief,  General  Booth,  is  enriching  himself  and  his 
family.  Why,  no  one  has  a  salary  more  than  that 
which  a  bank  clerk  commands  after  a  few  years  in 
office ;  all  the  money  is  banked  in  the  General's 
name,  but  none  can  be  taken  out  without  the  au- 
thority of  the  Finance  Committee.  In  a  word,  all 
possible  precautions  are  taken  to  prevent  the  things 
concerning  which  the  dissemination  of  lies  goes  on. 
Yet  the  lies  are  disseminated;  and  they  are  believed. 
The  reason  why  they  are  believed  is  that  the  people', 
seeing  an  organisation  thus  successful,  outside  the 
ordinary  lines,  and  without  the  patronage  of  bishop, 
clergy,  and  Church,  an  organisation  which  is  essen- 
tially popular  —  of  the  people,  for  the  people,  by 

258 


SIR     IV  J  LT  ER     B  ES  A  NT 

the  people  —  an  organisation  containing  here  and 
there  a  scholar  and  a  gentleman  and  a  gentlewoman, 
but  consisting  for  the  most  part  of  a  simple  folk, 
regard  it  with  suspicion  and  are  slow  to  recognise 
the  solid  feats  of  self-sacrifice,  the  Christian  aims  — 
and  the  success. 

The  general  prejudice  against  the  Salvation  Army 
was  illustrated  in  an  article  in  the  Spectator  in  the 
autumn  of  1900.  The  writer,  after  speaking  of  the 
early  Friars,  asked  sadly  where  such  a  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  devotion  was  to  be  found  at  the  present 
day.  The  spirit  was  manifested  in  a  great  work  — 
far  greater  than  that  of  Francis  in  his  lifetime ;  that 
work  was  lying  at  the  very  feet  of  the  writer  ;  yet  he 
could  not  see  it ;  all  he  saw  was  an  aggressive  form 
of  sectarian  Christianity.  Here  is  the  vast  machi- 
nery worked  by  thousands  for  the  sake  of  tens  of 
thousands,  bringing  hope  and  consolation  and  the 
restoration  of  manhood  to  the  poor  wrecks  and  waifs 
of  humanity,  to  the  submerged,  to  the  criminals,  to 
the  drunkards,  to  the  prostitutes,  to  the  discharged 
prisoners,  to  ruined  clerks,  to  broken  gentlemen. 
"  Where,"  asks  this  writer,  "  is  that  spirit  of  self- 
sacrifice  and  devotion  to  be  found  to-day  ?  "  Alas, 
purblind  ignorance  !  Alas  for  prejudice  which  will 
not  see !  Alas  for  the  deafness  which  cannot  hear 
and  the  stupidity  which  will,  being  whole,  not  under- 
stand ! 

And  so  you  see  my  philanthropic  work,  such  as 
it  has  been,  has  been  due  entirely  to  two  or  three 
novels.      I  drew  a  picture  as  faithfully  as  I   could 

259 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

and  I  was  identified  with  the  picture.  People  sup- 
posed that  because  I  had  drawn  with  a  certain 
amount  of  understanding  my  heart  was  full  of  sym- 
pathy. The  calls  upon  me  went  far  to  create  that 
sympathy.  First  I  drew  what  I  saw ;  then  my 
sympathy  went  out  towards  my  models ;  the  next 
step  was  to  write  for  them,  to  work  for  them,  to 
speak  for  them.  But  I  began  to  speak  late  in  life. 
I  have  never  been  a  speaker ;  I  lacked  the  small 
things  of  the  orator  —  the  current  common  phrase 
with  which  he  effects  the  junctura  callida  of  various 
divisions.  Moreover,  I  had  a  difficulty  to  manage 
my  voice  ;  when  I  grew  excited,  when  I  felt  my 
audience  with  me,  I  was  carried  away,  I  spoke  too 
fast.  Yet  there  were  occasions  on  which  I  could, 
and  did,  speak  effectively — notably  one  occasion 
at  the  Mansion  House  when  I  certified  to  what  I 
knew  and  had  proved  concerning  the  social  work 
of  the  Salvation  Army. 

I  shall  not,  I  suppose,  speak  much  more  in 
public.  I  can  only  hope  that  in  my  various  ad- 
dresses I  may  have  done  good,  if  only  to  dispel 
some  prejudice;  that  I  may  have  induced  some  of 
the  younger  and  more  generous  spirits  to  take  upon 
them,  whether  for  the  Salvation  Army  or  some 
other  cause,  that  spirit  of  self-sacrifice,  of  devotion, 
of  voluntary  obscurity  which,  pace  the  Spectator,  is 
in  this  generation  awake  and  alive  among  us  and 
is  working  marvels. 


260 


SIR      fV  A  LT  E  R      B  E  S  J  JS  T 
Chapter  XIV ' 

THE   SURVEY    OF   LONDON 

IN    October  1894  I  began  the  survey  of  Lon- 
don, having  entered  into  an  arrangement  with 
Messrs.  A.  &  C.  Black,  the  publishers  of  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  for  its  production. 

The  survey  of  London  was  first  undertaken  by 
John  Stow,  and  the  first  edition  was  published  in 
1598.  His  work  remains  as  the  basis  of  all  follow- 
ing works  on  the  same  subject.  It  is  indeed  re- 
markable to  observe  how  very  little  was  added  to 
Stow  for  a  long  time.  Anthony  Munday,  James 
Howell,  and  a  "  Society  of  Gentlemen  "  successively 
brought  out  new  editions  of  Stow's  Survey  —  not 
always  under  that  name  —  during  the  seventeenth 
century.  In  1720  an  edition  brought  up  to  date 
with  maps  and  excellent  illustrations  was  issued  by 
John  Strype  in  two  volumes  folio.  This  was  fol- 
lowed by  T'he  Circuit  JValk,  or  Perambulation.  In 
1754  another  edition  of  Stow  and  Strype  appeared 
with  very  little  alteration.  In  the  same  year  William 
Maitland  produced  his  History  and  Survey  of  London ^ 

1  This  chapter  gives  only  an  outline  of  the  author's  design  ;  but 
Sir  Walter  Besant  intended  to  make  additions  to  it,  and  also  to  allude 
here  in  detail  to  his  several  books  on  London.  Moreover  he  hoped 
that  the  Suwey  would  see  the  light  during  his  life,  when  the  work 
would  speak  for  itself. 

261 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

which  was  original  and,  for  the  time,  very  good. 
Other  books  came  out  on  the  history  of  London 
with  or  without  the  Perambulation.  These,  whether 
they  bore  the  name  of  Lambert,  Allen,  or  Entick, 
were  practically  copies  of  Maitland  —  mere  copies 
verbatim  of  page  after  page.  Harrison's  history, 
which  belongs  to  the  same  time  as  Maitland,  is  also 
for  the  most  part  a  copy.  Since  the  appearance  of 
Strype  —  that  is  to  say,  for  nearly  a  hundred  and 
fifty  years  —  there  has  been  no  survey  of  London. 
Maps  of  London  there  are,  books  on  various 
points  connected  with  London  —  such  as  the  his- 
tory of  a  suburb,  of  a  church,  of  an  institution  — 
but  there  has  been  no  survey. 

My  proposal  was  to  conduct  such  a  survey. 
The  plan  was  as  follows  :  First,  the  history  of  Lon- 
don from  the  earliest  times  to  the  end  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  was  to  be  written  by  myself  I  have 
now  (1901)  completed  the  work  down  to  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  This  history  includes 
the  rise  and  growth  of  the  government  of  London, 
the  story  of  its  religious  houses,  the  daily  life 
of  the  people,  the  records  of  trade,  shipping, 
buildings  —  everything  that  can  be  found  for  a 
reconstruction  and  restoration  of  the  City  from 
age  to  age.  The  history  of  Westminster  and  of 
Limehouse  was  planned  to  follow  the  history  of 
the  City.  The  antiquities  of  London  and  of  its 
ancient  suburbs  were  to  be  detailed  after  this.  The 
City  churches  were  to  be  described  with  their  chan- 
tries  and  monuments.     There  were   to   be   mono- 

262 


SIR      PVALTER     BESANT 

graphs  on  St.  Paul's,  Westminster  Abbey,  the  Inns 
of  Court,  the  Tower  of  London,  and  other  impor- 
tant places.  The  perambulations  of  the  City  and 
its  suburbs,  including  the  whole  area  covered  by 
the  London  County  Council,  were  to  come  next. 
We  were  then  to  give  the  history  of  London  as  it  is 
to-day,  with  all  its  buildings  and  institutions,  in- 
cluding a  history  of  education  in  London  from  the 
earliest  times  to  the  end  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

This  was  the  task  that  lay  before  me.  I  began 
with  the  perambulations,  which  were  carried  out  for 
me  by  three  or  four  active  and  intelligent  young 
people.  For  my  own  part  I  set  to  work  at  once 
upon  the  history.  I  confess  that  had  I  known  the 
enormity  of  the  labours  before  me,  I  should  not 
have  undertaken  the  work.  Every  one  will  under- 
stand that  the  number  of  points  constantly  cropping 
up  and  demanding  investigation  could  not  be  esti- 
mated beforehand.  My  original  design  was  to  give 
the  whole  day  to  the  work  except  when  I  had 
fiction  in  hand  —  that  is  to  say,  to  give  about 
eight  months  of  the  year.  When  I  was  working 
upon  a  novel  I  gave  up  my  mornings  from  nine  to 
twelve  to  fiction;  and  my  afternoons  —  from  half- 
past  one  till  six  —  to  the  Survey.  A  change  of 
work  does  not  fatigue  one  so  much  as  continuing 
steadily  at  the  same  work.  To  put  away  the  fic- 
tion, which  I  did  at  home,  and  to  take  up  the  Sur- 
vey, which  I  wrote  in  town,  was  a  refreshing  change, 
the  work  being  divided  by  the  time  taken  up  in 
getting  into  town.     However,  when  I  look  at  the 

263 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

masses  of  typewritten  material  which  represent  the 
six  years  of  work  at  the  Survey,  I  am  astonished 
that  I  have  been  able  to  carry  out  so  much  with 
my  own  hand.  I  resolved,  at  the  outset,  to  under- 
take the  history  alone,  but  I  found  it  necessary  to 
take  over  a  great  deal  more.  I  mention  the  Sur- 
vey as  part  —  a  good  part  —  of  my  life's  work.  I 
know  not  how  it  will  be  received.  There  is  so  vast 
a  field  to  be  covered.  The  modern  discoveries 
made  concerning  mediaeval  London  and  the  recent 
publications  of  the  Corporation  have  given  me  a 
quantity  of  material  never  before  used  or  put 
together.  I  need  not  here  furnish  a  list  of  these 
books :  that  will  be  found  in  the  Survey  itself 
Let  it  only  be  remembered  that  I  have  been  able  to 
break  away  altogether  from  Maitland  and  to  treat 
the  City  from  new  materials  and  newly  published 
records. 

I  have  only  to  say,  further,  on  this  point,  that  I 
hope  to  see  the  publication  begun  this  year  (1901), 
and  that  I  am,  further,  in  hopes  that  the  history 
and  the  Survey  will  be  found  worthy  of  the  time 
and  the  subject.  The  beginning  of  the  twentieth 
century  is  a  fitting  time  for  such  a  Survey  to  ap- 
pear, and  it  is  interesting  to  think  that  it  is  as  nearly 
as  possible  three  hundred  years  since  the  first  edition 
of  Stow  was  published. 


264 


SIR      IV  A  LT  E  R     B  ES  A  N  T 


Chapter  XV 

THE   ATLANTIC   UNION 

IN  my  belief  and  according  to  my  experience,  if 
anything  is  to  be  accomplished  it  must  be  by 
the  initiative  of  one  man.  A  society  with  the 
full  machinery  of  president,  vice-president,  and 
committee  may  be  created,  but  then,  when  all  is 
told,  the  work  will  be  the  work  of  one  man,  who 
must  think  for  the  society,  live  for  it,  act  for  it,  and 
give  all  his  time  to  it.  The  man  who  does  the 
work  need  not  be  the  man  who  started  it. 

One  of  the  last  associations  with  the  start  of 
which  I  was  associated  —  though  one  of  which  I 
beg  to  state  I  was  never  the  mainspring  or  the 
thinking  machine  —  was  the  Atlantic   Union. 

The  origin  and  the  meaning  of  the  Society  was 
as  follows :  — 

I  observed  when  I  last  visited  the  United  States 
in  1893,  a  blind  and  stupid  hostility  to  England, 
partly  made  up  of  prejudice  and  ignorance,  and  partly 
due  to  the  press  of  New  York,  which  caters  in  great 
measure  for  the  Irish,  and  is  copied  by  the  country 
papers  without  asking  what  motives  have  actuated 
the  misrepresentation  of  things  English.  In  illustra- 
tion of  this  hostility  I  observed  that  the  attitude  of 

265 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

almost  everybody  in  America  towards  England  was 
then  one  of  suspicion  ;  whatever  was  done  by  this 
country  was  regarded  and  treated  at  the  outset  as 
presumably  done  with  an  evil  motive  or  with  un- 
worthy considerations.  I  observed  further,  that 
the  individual  Englishman  was  received  with  friend- 
liness and  kindness  ;  that  he  can  reckon  on  friendli- 
ness. Also  that  there  exists,  all  over  the  States,  a 
great  deal  of  interest  in  everything  that  concerns 
the  old  country ;  in  news  and  telegrams  from  Eng- 
land, in  our  literature,  in  our  views  of  things.  I 
saw  also  that  the  ignorance  of  our  institutions  in 
the  States  is  simply  amazing.  We  talk  about  the 
laws  being  the  same ;  the  foundation  of  the  law  is 
the  same,  but  there  are  enormous  differences.  For 
instance,  no  Americans  seem  able  to  understand 
loyalty  ;  our  personal  respect  and  affection  for  the 
sovereign  is  to  them  incomprehensible  ;  they  do  not 
understand  the  restrictions  of  sovereignty,  and  ex- 
pect from  the  sovereign  the  same  personal  and 
irresponsible  acts  and  words  as  from  an  ordinary 
person.  Again,  as  to  the  House  of  Lords,  their 
ignorance  and  prejudice  are  colossal.  Mostly  they 
think  that  it  comprises  all  the  sons  as  well  as  the 
holders  of  the  title  ;  and  they  are  fully  convinced 
that  a  noble  lord  is  and  must  be  a  profligate  and 
roue.  If  you  ask  them  why,  they  point  prob- 
ably to  some  noble  lord  who  has  been  figuring  in 
the  States  with  a  variety  actress,  leaving  his  wife  at 
home;  or  to  some  scandal  in  which  some  other 
noble  lord  or  some  younger  son  with  a   courtesy 

266 


SIR     WALTER      BESANT 

title  is  concerned.  That  the  House  of  Lords  con- 
sists almost  entirely  of  elderly  and  quite  respectable 
gentlemen,  many  of  whom  have  received  or  suc- 
ceeded to  their  titles  late  in  life  ;  who  are  not  too 
rich ;  who  are  for  the  most  part  interested  in  local, 
rather  than  in  national  matters ;  who  are  chairmen 
of  county  institutions  and  supporters  of  the  agri- 
cultural interest ;  who  leave  their  legislative  func- 
tions to  the  care  of  a  dozen  or  twenty  statesmen  and 
as  many  lawyers  —  that  such  is  our  House  of  Lords 
is  a  thing  that  they  cannot  believe,  and  will  not 
believe,  because  it  conflicts  with  one  of  their  most 
cherished  prejudices.  Indeed  this  prejudice  I  have 
found  among  Americans  who  have  been  here  over 
and  over  again.  Now,  one  is  not  called  upon  to 
defend  either  the  limited  monarchy  or  the  Upper 
House  to  Americans  ;  but  it  would  certainly  be  well 
if  they  could  learn  at  least  the  facts  of  the  case. 
As  it  is,  they  are  unable  to  understand  the  existence 
of  free  institutions,  and  personal  liberty  of  thought, 
speech,  and  action,  together  with  (i)  a  sovereign 
whose  power  —  but  this,  again,  they  cannot  under- 
stand —  is  far  less  than  that  of  their  President ;  and 
(2)  a  House  of  Lords  not  elected  by  the  people, 
whose  modest  functions  are  to  put  on  the  drag,  to 
prevent  the  passing  of  ill-considered  measures,  and 
to  allow  no  great  or  important  step  to  be  taken 
until  they  are  well  assured  that  it  is  the  will  of  the 
people. 

Again,  consider  the  attitude' of  the  average  Ameri- 
can towards   the  Anglican  Church.      I  suppose  that 

267 


A  UT  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r     OF 

the  Episcopal  Church  in  the  States  does  regard  the 
Anglican  branch  with  respect  or  with  appreciation. 
But  the  average  American  does   not  belong  to   the 
Episcopal   Church.      I   have  found  in   the  average 
American   a  rooted  belief  (i)  that  our  clergy  are 
enormously   rich;    (2)   that   they   do   nothing;  (3) 
that  such  a  thing  as  piety  is  not  known   to  them  ; 
(4)  that  the  patronage  of  the  Church  is  in  the  hands 
of  "  the  aristocracy,"  who  put  their  younger  sons 
into  all  the  enviable  berths.     These  prejudices  are 
kept  alive  by  an  ill-informed   or  malignant  press  in 
America;   by   certain    dissenting  ministers    In    this 
country   whose   hatred  of  the   Church   has  a  social 
origin  —  let  us  own  that  of  late  the  appearance  of 
scholars    and    divines    among     the    Nonconformist 
ministers  is  changing  the  social  aspect  of  the  case ; 
and  by  the  traditions  of  persecution  which  still  linger 
In  the  memory  of  the  New  England  folk.     The  pre- 
judices can  be  answered  only  by  reference  to  figures 
and  to  facts  which  cannot  be  disputed.    The  poverty 
of  the  English  clergy  is  far  greater  than  the  poverty 
of  the   American   ministers ;   the  number  of  good 
livings  In  England  Is  much   less  than   the   number 
of  well-paid  churches  In  New  England.     The  An- 
glican bishops,  whose  Incomes  appear  large,  cannot, 
as  a  rule,  save  much  from  what  they  receive.     They 
are,  for  the  most  part,  elderly  when  they  are  ap- 
pointed ;  they  have  to  keep  up  open  house  all  the 
year  round ;  they   have  to  support  every   kind  of 
charitable  and  religious  enterprise ;  they  are  always 
contributing  to  the  support  of  poor  clergy,  of  clergy- 

268 


SIR      IV  J  L  T  E  R      B  E  S  A  N  T 

men's  widows  and  orphans,  and  schools  and  so  on  ; 
they  travel  about,  and  are  always  obliged  to  keep 
up  a  staff  of  chaplains  and  secretaries.  The  bishop 
is  paid  for  the  maintenance  and  leadership  of  the 
diocese  and  all  that  his  diocese  means ;  he  is  the 
figure-head,  the  chairman,  the  advocate ;  without  a 
bishop  the  diocese  falls  to  pieces.  As  regards 
piety,  what  need  be  said  when  we  can  point 
to  the  long  and  glorious  history  of  the  English 
Church  —  to  the  names  of  Ken,  Hooker,  Her- 
bert, Heber,  or,  in  later  times,  Keble,  Pusey, 
Maurice,  Robertson,  Stanley  and  hundreds  of 
others  less  known  to  fame  ?  As  to  the  patronage 
of  the  Church,  one  has  only  to  look  into  the  Clergy 
List  to  find  out  what  that  is  worth  and  how  it  is 
bestowed. 

An  American  once  wrote  to  me  giving  me,  with 
a  great  air  of  triumph,  what  he  was  pleased  to  con- 
sider a  damning  fact  for  the  Church  —  viz.,  that  the 
patron  of  a  certain  benefice  had  actually  bestowed  it 
upon  his  illegitimate  son  first  and  then  upon  that 
holder's  son.  He  did  not  explain  why  illegitimacy 
should  make  a  man  unfit  for  Holy  Orders  or  for 
holding  a  living;  nor  did  he  explain  how  it  was  that 
the  bishop  had  accepted  for  the  benefice  a  man 
unfit,  as  my  American  evidently  considered  the 
man  to  be.  But  then  he  was  quite  ignorant  that 
the  bishop  had  anything  to  do  with  the  appointment. 

These  prejudices  are  not,  of  course,  so  strong 
with  the  educated  and  the  cultured  Americans  as 
with    the    average   American ;   still,   they   do   exist, 

269 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

more  or  less,  with  nearly  all.  They  are  difficult  to 
be  cleared  away  because  they  assist  the  American  in 
that  feeling  of  superiority  which  is  dear  to  every 
nationality.  It  is  perhaps  dearer  to  an  American 
than  to  a  Frenchman  or  a  German;  and  I  think 
that  one  of  the  causes  of  the  American  hostility  to 
England  that  I  noticed  during  my  stay  in  the  United 
States  in  1893  is  that  we  do  not  recognise  that 
superiority.  We  do  not,  in  fact,  care  in  the  least 
whether  a  foreign  country  thinks  itself  superior  to 
ourselves  or  not.  But  we  do  see  that  the  American 
claim  is  partly  based  on  ignorance  and  prejudice. 
And  we  should  be  very  pleased  if  we  could,  by 
any  means  in  our  power,  remove  some  of  that 
prejudice. 

I  next  observed  that  a  great  number  of  Americans 
—  and,  for  that  matter,  of  people  from  our  own 
large  colonies  —  come  to  this  country  every  year ; 
that  they  stay  a  short  time  in  London ;  that  they 
travel  about  England  to  a  certain  extent,  seeing 
cathedrals,  castles,  churches,  and  historic  places; 
that  they  bring  with  them  no  letters  of  introduction  ; 
that  they  never  enter  an  English  house  or  make  a 
friend  of  any  English  man  or  woman  ;  that  they  see 
everything  from  the  outside  only  ;  and  that  they 
go  away  again  with  all  their  prejudice  and  igno- 
rance as  strong  as  ever.  For  you  see,  you  cannot 
master  the  history,  or  understand  the  present  con- 
dition, of  the  Church  of  England  by  standing 
in  a  village  churchyard  or  by  looking  through  a 
cathedral. 

270 


SIR      PTJLTER     BESANT 

This  is  a  long  preamble.  It  leads  up  to  the  crea- 
tion of  the  Atlantic  Union. 

The  Society  admits  as  members  Englishmen, 
Irishmen  and  Scotchmen,  Australians,  Canadians, 
citizens  of  any  British  colony,  and  Americans.  Be- 
cause the  Canadians  and  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States  represent  the  largest  field,  it  is  called  the  At- 
lantic Union.  We  want  to  see  branches  in  all  the 
great  cities,  which  shall  offer  some  kind  of  hos- 
pitality to  members  of  other  branches.  For  in- 
stance, we  in  London  engage  ourselves  to  receive 
Americans  and  others,  to  show  them  collective  and 
individual  attention  ;  we  organise  for  them  person- 
ally conducted  walks  and  visits  ;  we  shall  be  able  to 
let  them  see  more  than  is  shown  to  the  average 
stranger ;  we  shall  hold  receptions  ;  we  shall  get  up 
dinners,  concerts,  lectures ;  certain  ladies  will  give 
garden-parties  and  "  at-homes  "  ;  we  shall  make  up 
parties  to  go  to  Oxford  and  Cambridge  and  to  cer- 
tain cathedrals  and  other  places ;  and  during  the 
whole  time  we  shall  endeavour  to  present  our  own 
institutions  as  they  are  —  without  comparisons  :  as 
they  are. 

Again,  we  shall  not  attempt  to  get  hold  of  mil- 
lionaires, nor  can  we  offer  our  friends  an  opening 
into  "  London  Society."  We  want  to  attract  the 
classes  which  have  most  influence  in  the  colonies 
and  in  the  States —  the  professional  classes,  lawyers, 
physicians,  authors,  teachers.  And  on  our  side  we 
shall  offer  the  society  of  the  corresponding  classes 
—  of    cultivated    and  educated    people,    men  and 

271 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

women  of  science,  followers  of  art,  literature,  jour- 
nalism, and  the  learned  professions  generally.  It 
is  a  great  scheme;  it  is  now  (1901)  only  in  its 
second  year  ;  but  I  think  —  I  hope  —  that  it  has  a 
future  before  it. 


273 


SIR      H^  A  LT  E  K      B  ES  A  N  T 


Chapter  XVI 


CONCLUSION  :  THE  CONDUCT  OF  LIFE  AND  THE 
INFLUENCE    OF    RELIGION 

I  AM  writing  in  the  decline  of  life,  when  the 
sixtieth  birthday  is  already  five  years  behind, 
and  one  must  contemplate  the  possibility  of 
immediate  dissolution  and  the  certainty  of  a  speedy 
end;  when  all  that  life  has  to  give,  or  that  fortune 
chooses  to  give,  has  been  already  given.  The  love 
of  woman ;  of  wife  and  children  ;  the  allotted 
measure  of  success ;  the  joy  of  work  ;  the  joy  of 
struggle ;  the  joy  of  victory  ;  the  love  of  friends 
who  have  gone  before  and  of  friends  who  are  left ; 
the  reputation,  whatever  it  may  be  —  all  these 
things  have  been  received  and  enjoyed  ;  and  with 
them  the  piled-up  hatreds  and  revenges  of  the  baser 
sort.  There  is  work  still  to  be  done  :  it  is  the 
carrying  on  of  old  work,  not  the  making  of  new 
work.  We  gather  up  the  threads  and  accomplish 
the  task,  happy  if  it  has  been  a  task  so  weighty 
as  to  be  prolonged  into  the  year  threescore  and 
ten. 

Let  me  end  these  reminiscences  with  a  few  words 
befitting  the  close  of  a  life  —  being  upon  the  Con- 
duct of  Life  and  the  Influence  of  Religion. 
i8  273 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY      OF 

One  is  not  expected  to  be  much  above  the 
standards  of  one's  own  time.  At  school,  for  in- 
stance, we  had  no  athletics  to  speak  of  in  my  time; 
we  played  cricket  and  football,  we  ran  races.  There 
was  no  responsibility  laid  upon  the  back  of  the 
senior  boys  yet ;  in  a  way  they  did  look  after  the 
juniors  —  it  was  an  irresponsible  and  spontaneous 
fashion ;  such  words  as  "  good  form "  and  "  bad 
form  "  were  unknown,  yet  the  things  were  known. 

At  King's  College,  London,  the  professors  and 
lecturers  took  no  personal  interest  in  the  students ; 
the  principal.  Dr.  Jelf,  knew  nothing  of  them  and 
paid  them  no  attention  ;  nobody  cared  whether  they 
read  ;  nobody  ever  considered  it  worth  while  to  look 
after  the  better  sort ;  we  were  all  left  absolutely 
alone.  There  was  no  college  life  in  the  place, 
no  clubs,  no  social  intercourse  among  the  students. 
The  idea  was  simply  to  present  the  means  of  learn- 
ing if  the  men  chose  to  avail  themselves  of  the  gift ; 
in  the  same  way  the  old  and  still  lingering  adminis- 
tration of  the  Church  was  to  open  the  doors,  to 
present  the  means  of  grace,  and  to  allow  those  who 
wished  to  avail  themselves  of  the  gift.  Outside 
the  college,  I  have  already  explained,  I  used  to 
wander  about  the  City.  But  there  was  the  evening 
to  get  through.  No  one  appeared  to  know  how 
desperately  miserable  an  evening  all  alone  in 
lodgings  may  be.  I  have  sat  with  my  books 
before  me  while  the  silence  grew  more  and  more 
intolerable,  rising  up  all  round  as  a  cloud  hiding 
the  rest   of  the  world.     When  my  nerves   would 

274 


SIR      JV  A  LT  E  R      B  ES  A  N  T 

stand  it  no  longer,  I  have  taken  my  hat  and  rushed 
out  into  the  streets. 

The  evening  amusements  of  London  were  more 
varied,  and  far,  far  more  coarse  than  they  are  now. 
As  a  young  fellow  of  eighteen  I  ought  not  to  have 
gone  to  them  —  that  is  quite  certain.  Yet  what 
could  be  done  when  solitude  became  intolerable  ? 
There  were  the  theatres  at  half-price  —  there  were 
not  many  theatres,  and  in  a  week  or  two  one  could 
get  through  them  all.  There  were  the  dancing 
places  of  the  more  decorous  sort,  the  Argyle 
Rooms,  the  Holborn  Casino,  "  Caldwell's,"  besides 
places  whose  reputation  was  such  that  one  was 
afraid  to  venture  within  their  walls.  At  the  Hol- 
born and  the  Argyle  the  ladies  were  very  beautifully 
dressed.  I  did  not  go  there  to  dance  or  to  make 
their  acquaintance ;  I  sat  on  the  red  velvet  benches 
and  listened  to  the  music.  At  "  Caldwell's,"  on 
the  other  hand,  where  the  girls  were  more  simply 
attired,  and  where  they  liked  to  meet  a  young 
fellow  who  could  dance,  and  could  dance  tolerably 
well,  I  did  dance.  Perhaps  it  was  wrong ;  perhaps, 
however,  it  was  not.  I  take  no  blame  to  myself  on 
account  of  "Caldwell's." 

There  were  places  not  quite  so  innocent  whither 
my  wandering  footsteps  led  me.  There  were  the 
Coal  Hole,  the  Cider  Cellars,  Evans's.  At  these 
places  there  was  singing ;  some  of  the  songs  were 
very  beautiful  and  very  well  sung ;  part  songs  were 
given  at  Evans's ;  poses  plastiques  were  offered  for 
the  corruption  of  youth  at  a  place  whose  name  I 

27s 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY    OF 

have  forgotten ;  and  at  the  Coal  Hole  or  the  Cider 
Cellars  there  was  "  Baron "  Nicholson  and  the 
"judge  and  jury."  Such  an  exhibition  would  not 
be  tolerated  at  the  present  day  ;  I  remember  it  as 
clever  but  inconceivably  coarse.  In  the  summer 
one  could  go  to  Cremorne  or  to  Highbury  Barn; 
even,  for  curiosity,  walk  to  the  Eagle  in  the  City 
Road.  When  I  remember  all  these  places  and 
how,  in  order  to  escape  the  awful  stillness  of  my 
lodgings,  I  would  go  out  in  the  evening  and  prowl 
about  looking  in  here  and  there,  I  wonder  that 
some  horrible  obsession  of  the  devil  did  not  fall 
upon  me,  as  it  fell  upon  hundreds  and  thousands 
of  young  fellows  like  myself,  turned  into  the  streets 
because  I  could  not  bear  to  sit  alone.  Why,  there 
were  clerks  and  students  all  round  me ;  every 
house  in  my  street  was  filled  with  them ;  every  man 
sat  in  his  own  dismal  cell  and  listened  to  the  silence 
till  his  nerves  could  stand  it  no  longer.  Then  he 
went  out  into  the  street.  If  there  are  fifty  devils 
in  the  streets  to-day,  there  were  five  hundred  then. 
It  was  not  every  one  who  at  eighteen  was  so  boyish 
in  mind  and  manner  and  in  appearance  as  I  was ; 
not  every  one  who  was  short-sighted  and  shy ;  not 
every  one  who  was  able  to  sit  among  the  rabble 
rout  and  listen  to  the  music  as  if  surrounded  by 
nymphs  and  swains  of  the  highest  purity  and 
virtue. 

However,  the  thing  to  be  remembered  is  that 
London  was  much  coarser  in  its  evening  amusements 
then  than   now ;   that  the  outward  show   of  morals 

276 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  A  NT 

was  not  insisted  upon  so  much.  London  is  bad 
enough  now,  but  in  most  localities  only  after  ten 
o'clock  and  before  twelve,  whereas  in  the  fifties 
things  went  on  all  day  long.  I  remember  that 
among  the  houses  south  of  Waterloo  Bridge  there 
was  a  whole  row  where  in  the  ground-floor  windows 
there  was  every  day  an  exhibition  of  girls  dancing 
up  and  down,  and  inviting  the  young  men  to  come 
in.  And  I  remember  that,  apart  from  the  "judge 
and  jury  "  business,  the  songs  sung  at  some  places 
were  coarse  beyond  belief.  And  considering  all 
these  things,  1  cannot  wonder  that  I  went  to  them, 
having  no  one  to  warn  or  to  restrain  me,  or  to  ofl'er 
any  substitutes  for  the  amusements  which  were  gross 
enough,  yet  promised  the  attractions  of  music  and 
singing. 

At  Cambridge  there  were  none  of  these  things. 
Yet  there  were  coarsenesses  at  Cambridge  which  one 
looks  back  upon  with  surprise.  After  dinner  (the 
dinner  hour  was  four  —  an  unholy  hour)  there  were 
"  wines "  which  were  often  prolonged  far  into  the 
evening.  There  were  also  suppers,  and  at  wines 
and  at  suppers  men  sang  songs  which  would  not 
now  be  tolerated  by  the  most  rowdy  set  in  the  most 
rowdy  college.  Then  there  was  little  or  no  disguise 
if  a  man  supported  the  suburb  called  Barnwell ;  the 
only  thing  was  that  he  must  not  be  caught  by  the 
proctors.  The  suburb  was  well  populated  and  freely 
discussed.  That  a  man  was  intended  for  Holy 
Orders  did  not  ofi^er  an  obstacle  to  this  patronage 
of  Barnwell ;   there    were    fellows   of  colleges  who 

277 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

were  as  bad  as  the  undergraduates  in  this  respect. 
I  mention  the  fact  simply  to  show  the  temptations 
to  which  young  men  were  then  exposed.  Nothing 
is  more  remarkable  than  the  change  at  my  university 
in  respect  to  wine  —  and  Barnwell.  Meantime  it 
must  not  be  supposed  that  there  were  no  under- 
graduates of  a  higher  tone  or  a  purer  life ;  on  the 
contrary,  there  were  many  ;  their  lives,  their  con- 
versation, their  habits  were  a  continual  protest  against 
the  general  low  level. 

In  a  word,  the  youth  of  my  time  were  brought  up 
in  the  midst  of  great  laxity  of  morals,  great  coarse- 
ness of  conversation,  amusements  gross  and  un- 
seemly, yet  with  the  existence  all  around  them  of 
Puritan  austerity  and  the  condemnation  of  the 
reasonable  recreations  of  life.  Unfortunately  the 
Puritan  austerity  demanded  too  much  of  young 
men  ;  it  could  only  be  adopted  by  the  few  who 
were  as  cold-blooded  as  fishes,  or  by  the  fanatics 
who  curbed  themselves  with  resolution  and  by  vio- 
lence. For  it  condemned  all  amusements.  "  Could 
you,"  said  one,  and  it  was  thought  by  his  following 
to  be  a  clincher  —  "  could  you  say  grace  before  sit- 
ting down  to  cards  ?  "  The  answer  would  be  now 
"  Of  course  —  why  not  ?  "  For  indeed  there  is  no 
reason  why,  if  we  are  not  Pharisaic,  we  should  not 
thank  God  for  every  innocent  recreation.  "  Can 
you,"  asked  another,  "  put  your  arm  round  the 
waist  of  a  girl  in  the  dance  without  thoughts  of 
love  ?  "  The  answer  is  now  obvious.  Formerly  it 
was  not  so  obvious.    "  Can  you,"  asked  a  third  aus- 

278 


SIR     TV  A  LT  ER     B  ES  A  N  T 

terely,  "  go  to  the  theatre  while  your  immortal  soul 
remains  to  be  saved  ?  "  And  so  they  went  on.  Is 
there  any  wonder  that  the  revolt  against  the  Evan- 
gelicals waited  only  for  the  spark,  and  that  when 
this  spark  was  applied  by  the  newly  founded  Satur- 
day Review  the  defeat  and  the  rout  of  the  Evan- 
gelicals speedily  followed  ? 

The  Evangelicals  represented  for  the  most  part  a 
pitiless  and  horrible  Calvinism.  The  world  groaned 
under  the  dreadful  creed.  Not  only  did  it  limit 
the  mercy  of  God  and  the  mediation  of  Christ  to 
an  insignificant  minority,  but  it  held  that  as  a  man 
died  —  at  the  moment  of  death  —  so  his  soul  was 
affected  for  ever.  I  remember  how  a  cousin  of 
mine  was  drowned  when  I  was  a  boy.  The  young 
fellow  had  told  his  mother  that  he  was  not  going 
to  the  water  ;  he  changed  his  mind  and  went ;  and 
he  was  drowned.  The  kindly  religious  folk  said 
that  he  had  gone  to  meet  his  God  with  a  lie  upon 
his  lips,  and  that  his  doom  was  certain.  You  may 
imagine  the  agony  and  misery  of  his  mother. 

For  my  own  part  I  began  to  read  the  works  of 
Frederick  Denison  Maurice  ;  he  taught  me  the  way 
out  of  the  Evangelical  creed  and  I  followed  that 
way  with  the  greatest  alacrity. 

Having  shovelled  away  the  Evangelical  rubbish, 
I  was  ready  to  make  a  clean  sweep  of  a  good  deal 
more.  I  do  not  suppose  that  any  one  wants  to 
know  how  I  arrived  at  my  present  simple  creed, 
but  such  as  it  is,  perhaps  it  may  interest  some 
readers  :  — 

279 


A  U  T  O  B I O  G  RA  P  H  r     OF 

I  believe,  in  an  intelligent  Mind  who  hears,  lis- 
tens, guides,  and  directs ;  to  which  nothing  is  small, 
nothing  is  mean,  nothing  is  contemptible ;  which 
leads  a  Darwin  in  the  direction  of  discovery,  or 
grants  what  is  good  for  a  simple  girl ;  which  has 
ordered  the  evolution  of  an  insect  as  much  as  that 
of  a  man. 

I  believe  that  this  Mind  has  in  some  way  ordered 
the  conversion  of  a  ball  of  flaming  rock  into  a  globe 
covered  with  vegetation.  In  other  words,  what  we 
call  the  laws  of  Nature  are  due  to  the  Mind.  They 
are  laws  to  which  all  life  is  subject ;  if  they  are 
broken,  the  breaker  suffers. 

I  believe  that  these  laws  are  in  a  moral  or  spiritual 
order  as  well  as  physical  order.  The  discovery  of 
this  moral  order  has  been  made  little  by  little,  but 
the  greatest  contributors  to  the  discovery  have  been 
the  Jewish  prophets,  ending  with  Jesus. 

If  one  calls  him  the  Son  of  God,  why  not?  We 
are  all  the  Sons  of  God,  and  He  is  the  greatest. 
That  He  was  martyred  was  a  natural  result  of  His 
teaching  at  such  a  time. 

The  doctrine  of  atonement  by  blood  is  found  in 
every  age  and  in  every  country ;  it  forms  a  part  of 
the  great  theory  of  sacrifice  —  viz.,  the  propitiation 
of  the  Deity,  as  a  Deity,  by  something  rare  and 
precious  as  the  eldest  son,  or  a  captive,  or  so  many 
head  of  cattle  or  of  sheep.  We  no  longer  believe 
in  the  sacrifice  and  altars,  in  giving  roast  beef  to  the 
Lord,  or  in  offering  him  streams  of  wine  or  human 
sacrifices.     We    no    longer  believe  in  blood  being 

2S0 


SIR      WALTER      B  ES  J  N  T 

poured  out  in  order  to  propitiate  the  Deity.  There- 
fore to  speak  of  the  blood  of  Jesus  is  a  mere  sur- 
vival in  words  of  an  exploded  belief. 

The  pretensions  of  the  so-called  Christian  priest 
are  not  more  foolish  than  the  pretensions  of  any 
other  priest.  The  Jewish  prophets  have  proclaimed, 
in  words  that  ought  to  serve  once  for  all,  their 
contempt  for  the  Jewish  priest.  The  spirit  of  sa- 
cerdotalism is  the  same  in  every  religion  and  in  every 
age.  The  priest  claims  supernatural  powers;  we  con- 
vert bread  into  flesh  and  wine  into  blood  ;  we  confer 
some  mysterious  benefit  by  baptising  the  child, 
marrying  the  man  and  woman,  and  burying  them. 
The  priest  surrounds  himself  with  mystery,  gets 
inside  a  sacred  enclosure,  mumbles,  makes  signs, 
puts  on  vestments.  He  does  this  whether  he  is 
making  taboo  in  a  Polynesian  island,  or  mumbo- 
jumbo  in  West  Africa,  or  obeah  in  Jamaica,  or  is  a 
Roman  Catholic  priest  in  St.  Peter's  or  a  Ritualist 
in  an  English  church. 

Meantime  foolish  people  —  whose  folly  is  bound- 
less and  amazing  and  past  all  understanding  —  spend 
their  lives  in  fighting  over  what  is,  or  is  not,  allowed 
in  this  or  that  Prayer  Book.  Not  content  with  the 
slavery  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  they  have  become 
slaves  of  the  letter  of  the  Prayer  Book.  Now,  set 
the  Prayer  Book  aside  and  appeal  to  common  sense 
and  experience. 

Experience,  at  least,  yells  and  shouts  in  our  ears, 
only  we  will  not  understand,  the  fact  that  auricular 
confession  is  a  slavery ;  that  it  destroys  the  will  and 

281 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

that  it  leads  a  man  to  surrender  his  judgment  and 
his  freedom  of  action,  and  makes  him  in  the  conduct 
of  life  little  better  than  a  child. 

The  reservation  of  the  host  is  proved  to  be  fer- 
tile in  superstition,  in  charges  of  blasphemy,  and  in 
the  extension  of  priestly  domination.  The  only 
excuse  for  it  is  that  a  man  may  die  before  the 
bread  can  be  consecrated  —  as  if  it  mattered  in  such 
a  case,  or  in  any  case,  whether  the  bread  was  conse- 
crated or  not. 

The  use  of  incense  was  originally  introduced  to 
correct  the  atmosphere  during  a  crowded  service 
in  hot  countries.  If  it  were  not,  can  any  one  not 
corrupted  by  the  ecclesiastical  rubbish  believe  that 
the  Lord  is  pleased  by  creating  a  stink  in  a 
church? 

Some  of  the  poor  fanatics  are  desirous  of  Intro- 
ducing prayers  for  the  dead ;  can  they  possibly 
be  ignorant  of  the  fact  that  the  system  means 
prayers  for  those  who  can  pay,  and  the  creation 
of  chanting  priests,  to  sing  services  —  propitiatory 
services  —  for  those  who  can  pay  ?  And  can  they 
see  any  difference  between  such  a  service,  mumbled 
as  a  daily  duty  by  a  priest  paid  for  the  duty,  and 
the  mechanical  prayers  of  a  Buddhist  priest  ?  And 
can  they  reconcile  this  senseless  repetition  with  any 
mercy,  however  inadequate,  of  an  intelligent  Creator 
and  Father? 

In  fine,  the  more  I  consider  the  question  —  and  it 
has  been  forced  upon  my  consideration  more  than 
upon  that  of  many  men  —  the  more  I  understand 

282 


SIR      WALTER      BESANT 

that  the  whole  of  the  ecclesiastical  system,  with  the 
pretensions  of  the  clergy,  the  mock  mystery  of  their 
ritual,  the  supernatural  nonsense  of  their  claims,  their 
schemes  for  the  domination  of  the  human  intellect, 
their  ecclesiastical  trappings,  mouthings,  murmur- 
ings,  confessings,  incense,  consecration  rites,  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  are  foolish,  baseless,  and  to  the  highest 
degree  mischievous. 

Christianity  seems  to  me  a  perfectly  simple  reli- 
gion, it  consists  not  only  in  a  blameless  life,  but  in  a 
life  whose  ideals  are  continually  growing  higher  and 
more  noble.  That  this  is  possible,  is  in  itself  to  me 
a  proof  of  another  life  to  follow  this. 

In  Christianity  I  find  no  place  for  priest  or  for 
mysteries  of  man's  own  making.  The  world  is  full 
of  mysteries  ;  all  life  is  a  mystery  never  to  be  dis- 
covered. There  is  the  great  and  wonderful  mys- 
tery of  birth  —  can  anything  be  more  mysterious  or 
more  wonderful  ?  There  is  the  mystery  of  growth, 
the  mystery  of  manhood  and  of  strength,  the  mys- 
tery of  decay  and  death.  Why  do  we  decay  at 
sixty  and  die  at  seventy  ?  There  are  the  mysteries 
of  disease,  there  are  the  mysteries  of  man's  intel- 
lectual achievements,  his  scientific  discoveries,  his 
subjugation  of  natural  forces,  his  invention,  his 
music  and  his  arts,  his  poetry,  in  which  he  seems 
to  draw  back  the  veil  —  he  only  dreams  of  drawing 
it  back,  but  he  magnetises  his  audience  so  that  for 
a  time  they  think  that  they  are  looking  at  the  things 
behind.  Good  Heavens  !  These  are  the  great  and 
solemn    mysteries.       To    consider    them,    to   work 

283 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY     OF 

upon  them,  showing  their  reality  since  we  can  never 
show  their  cause,  to  study  them,  to  make  discov- 
eries in  them  —  these  are  things  worthy  of  man, 
worthy  of  true  religion.  Why  invent  sham  and 
meaningless  mysteries  which  are  but  words,  which 
lead  to  nothing  but  the  mischievous  intervention 
between  God  and  man  of  a  fellow-man  who  pre- 
tends to  useless  powers  and  professes  to  hold  the 
keys  of  heaven  ? 

A  blameless  life  —  what  is  it  ?  You  will  find  it 
all  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  if  you  are  wise 
enough  to  understand  what  is  meant,  and  not  to 
interpret  it  by  the  letter. 

And  so  I  leave  my  belief  and  my  life.  Looking 
back,  as  I  have  done  in  these  chapters,  I  remember 
a  good  many  mistakes  —  some  things  even  which  I 
should  be  ashamed  to  set  down  in  this  page.  But 
the  book  is  not  one  of  confessions.  I  could  not 
pretend,  as  regards  the  things  not  set  down,  to  be 
repentant ;  if  I  were  to  sprinkle  ashes  over  my  head, 
it  would  be,  perhaps,  while  I  was  recalling  the  thing 
itself  with  a  lingering  pleasure.  I  have  shown  you 
the  conditions  of  my  early  manhood ;  the  finish  of 
those  conditions  may  be  guessed,  as  much  as  you 
please.  And  as  to  my  religious  views,  they  have 
gradually  come  to  me.  Little  by  little  they  have 
formed  themselves  in  my  mind  until  they  have  become 
part  and  parcel  of  me.  Now  at  last  there  is  not 
left  to  me  a  single  rag  or  scrap  of  the  ecclesiastical 
rubbish.  I  do  not  seek  to  convert  any  of  my  readers 
to  my  own  views  ;  only,  my  very  dear  friends,  if  you 


SIR      tVALTER     BESANT 

could  understand  the  freedom  —  the  happy  freedom 
—  of  the  soul,  when  you  have  succeeded  in  recog- 
nising the  utter  baselessness  of  the  priestly  preten- 
sions, you  would  at  least  take  the  trouble  to  find 
out  what  the  views  mean. 


285 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abbey,  Edwin,  240 

Ainger,  Canon,  69 

All  in  a  Garden  Fair,  51,  76,  209 

All  Sorts  and  Conditions  of  Men, 

209 
All  the  Tear  Round,  189 
Alma-Tadema,  Sir  L. ,  240 
Arabesques  from  the  Bazaars,  240 
Arbuthnot,  Rev.  J.  K.,  251 
Argyle  Rooms,  275 
Armorel  of  Lyonesse,  209 
Arnold,  Matthew,  218 
Art  in  the  home,  256 
Athenaum,  193 
Atlantic  Union,  265 
Authors'  Society,  215-238 

Barkly,  Sir  Henry,  136,  144 
Bentley,  George,  169 
Beresford-Hope,  A.  J.,  153 
Besant,  Dr.  W.  H.,  39 
Besant,  Edgar,  188 
Besant,  Sir  Walter: 

Birthplace,  4 

Father,  33 

Mother,  38 

Early  reading,  38,  48,  53 

Early  education,  48-66 

At  King's  College,  London,  67 

Life  in  lodgings,  71 

Wins  prize  poem,  74 

19  289 


Besant,  Sir  Walter  {continued): 
At     Christ's     College,      Cam- 
bridge,   79 
Wins  prize  essay,  87 
Wrangler,  88 
Undergraduate  life,  88 
Wins  Calverley's  prize,  96 
Master  at  Leamington,  103 
Vacation  abroad,  105-108 
Colonial  appointment,  109 
Life  in  Mauritius,  11 5-1 44 
Offered  rectorship  of  Mauritius 

College,  118 
First  attempt  at  fiction,  140 
Returns  to  England,  145 
Publishes  first  book,  151 
Becomes  Secretary  to  the  Pal- 
estine    Exploration      Fund, 
152 
Meets  Professor  Palmer,  153 
Marries,  165 

First  steps  in  literary  career,  168 
The  French  Humorists,  169 
Midwinter  walks,  173 
History  of  Jerusalem,  174 
Joins  the  Savile  Club,  175 
The  Neiv  Plutarch,  177 
Titania'' s  Fareivell,  180 
Becomes  a  novelist,  181 
Views     on     critics,     182-185, 
190—196 


INDEX 


Besant,  Sir  Walter  (continued)  : 
Collaborates  with  James  Rice, 

i8s 
Ready  Money  Mortiboy,  i86 
Views  on  collaboration,  186 
The  Golden  Butterfly,  188 
The  Besant  and   Rice   novels, 

196 
The  Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,  196 
Industry,  199 
Literary  methods,  200 
Dorothy  Forster,  204 
The  Besant  novels,  204-211 
Preliminary    chairman    of    the 

Society  of  Authors,  221 
Views    on    Literary    Property, 

224-238 
Freemasonry,  238 
A    founder    of    the     Rabelais 

Club,  240 
Philanthropic  work,  243 
Associated    with   the    People's 

Palace,  244 
Views  on  the  Salvation  Army, 

256—260 
Work  on  London,  261-264 
Surnjey  of  London,  262 
Views  on  American  rapproche- 
ment, 265 
The  Atlantic  Union,  265-272 
Religious  views,  273—285 

Beyond  the  Dreams  of  Avarice,  209 

Black,  William,  218 

Blackmore,  R.  D.,  218 

Bonser,  Sir  Winfield,  85 

Booth,  Charles,  249 

Brewer,  Professor  J.  S.,  68 

British  Quarterly  Re'vienv,  169 

Brookfield,  Charles,  176 

Browne,  Professor  J.  H.,  68 

Buckley,  Sir  Henry,  84 

Budge,  Dr.  Wallis,  85 


Burdon-Sanderson,  Sir  J.,  218 

Burton,  Sir  Richard,  153 

By  Celiacs  Arbour,  8,  188,  196 

"Caldwell's,"  71,  275 

Calverley,  C.  S.,  84-86,  96 

Calvinistic  narrowness,  35,  279 

Cambridge  University  in  the  fif- 
ties,   81,  277 

Campbell,  Dykes,  138 

Capetown  in  1867,  147 

Cheetham,  Archdeacon,  84 

Cheetham,  Bishop,  84 

Children  of  Gibeon,  209,  246,  247 

Christie,  R.  Copley,  240 

Cider  Cellars,  275 

Coal  Hole,  275 

Collins,  Wilkie,  218 

Conder,  Colonel,  152,  161,  162, 
164,  165,  177 

Contemporary  Revie^w,  255 

Cost  of  Production,  235 

Creighton,  Mrs.,  254 

Critics  and  Criticism,  182,  190 

Currie,  Sir  Edmund,  244 

Daily  Netvs,  169,  177 
Darwin,  Francis,  85 
De  la  Roche  du  Rouzit,  Le  Mar- 
quis, 120 
Dicey,  Edward,  218 
Dixon,  Hepworth,  152 
Donaldson,  Professor  J.  L. ,  152 
Dorothy  Forster,  204 
Douglas,  Sir  John,  136 
Doyen,  Professor  Leon,  119,  139 
Doyle,  Dr.  Conan,  206 
Drake,  W.  T.  Tyrwhitt,  153 
Drapers'  Company,  245 
Duffield,  A.  J.,  176 
Dn  Maurier,  George,  96,  240 
Dymes,  Miss  Annie,  254 


290 


I  ND  EX 


East  London  Children's  Hos- 
pital, Foundation  of,  248 
Ebden,  Richard,  84,  109 
Evans's,  275 

Farrar,  Dean,  218 

Fergusson,  James,  152 

Field,  Roscoe&  Co.,  Messrs.,  222 

For  Faith  and  Freedom,  206 

Forestier,  A.,  208 

Foster,  Professor  Michael,  218 

Fowler,  Sir  Robert,  218 

Free  public  libraries,  256 

French  prisoners,  13 

Freshwater,  72,  73 

Friends  of  Bohemia,  137 

Froude,  J.  A.,  218 

Ganneau,  Clermont,  152,  160, 

163,  164,  165 
Gell,  Bishop,  84 
Ginsburg,  Dr.,  161 
Glaisher,  James,  152 
Gloucester,  Bishop  of,  218 
Gordon,  General,  153 
Gosse,  Edmund,  176 
Graphic,  205 
Green,  Charles,  205 
Grove,  Sir  George,  55,  152 
Gunson,  Dr.,  83 
Guthrie,  Professor  F.,  118,  173 

Hales,  Professor  J.  W.,  84 
Harben,  Sir  Henry,  55 
Hardy,  Thomas,  240 
Harte,  Bret,  240 
Hay,  Colonel  John,  240 
Heckford,  Mrs.,  248 
Henslow,  George,  85 
Herr  Paulus,  209 
History  of  Jerusalem,  174 
Hodges,  W.  Oliver,  223 


Holborn  Casino,  275 
Holland,  Rev.  F.  W.,  152 
Hollingshead,  John,  218 
Holmes,  Oliver  Wendell,  240 
Home  Arts  Association,  253 
Houghton,  Lord,  240 
Hudson,  Professor  W.  H.  H.,  55 
Hull,  Professor,  152 
Huxley,  Professor,  218,  256 

Illustrated  London  Ne^ws,  190 
In  Deacon's  Orders,  211 
Irving,  Charles,  55 
Irving,  Sir  Henry,  55,  240 

James,  Henry,  240 
Jardine,  Sir  J.,  84 
Jefferies,  Richard,  43 
Jelf,  Principal,  274 
"Judge  and  Jury,"  277 

Katherine  Regina,  211 
King's  College,  London,  67,  274 
Kitchener,  Lord,  152,  153 
Kitchin,  Dean,  218 

Land  port,  5 

V  Assommoir,  177 

Leland,   Charles,    176,  177,  240, 

253 
Lely,  J.  M.,  223 
L' Estrange,  Guy,  164 
Lewis,  Professor  Hayter,  152 
Little,  J.  Stanley,  224 
Liveing,  Dr.  R.,  84 
Lockyer,  Sir  Norman,  218 
London,  Life  in,  during  the  'fifties, 

275 
London,  Sur^vey  of,  262 
Longman,  William,  152 
Longridge,  James,  126 
Lytton,  Earl,  218,  240 


291 


INDEX 


Macmillan"    Magazine,  169 
Madden,  Sir  Frederick,  46 
Maine,  Sir  Henry,  ai8 
Manning,  Cardinal,  ai8 
Marsh,  Sir  William,  136 
Martin,  Sir  Theodore,  218 
Martineau,  Dr.,  218 
Matthews,  Brander,  222 
Mauritius  College  : 

Dissension  at,  117 

Staff  at,  118,  130 
Mauritius,  Life  in,  1 21-144 
Mauritius,  Malarial  fever  at,  142 
Mauritius,     Royal     College     at, 

115— 121 
Max-Muller,  Professor,  218 
Meldruni,  Charles,  137 
Meredith,  George,  193 
Merivale,  Hermann,  218 
Methods  of  Publishing^  234 
MIddleton-Wake,  Rev.  C,  84 
Millais,  Sir  John,  240 
Moabite  stone,  160 
Monkswell,  Lord,  223 
Montefiore,  Sir  Moses,  153 
Morison,  Cotter,  221 
Morrison,  Walter,  152 
Moulton,  J.  Fletcher,  85 
My  Little  Girl,  196 

Neiu  Plutarch,  177 
Nenv  York  Critic,  194 
Newton,  Sir  Edward,  136 
Nicholson,  "  Baron,"  276 

Oliphant,  Laurence,  153 
Once  a  JVeek,  168,  180,  186 

Palestine  Exploration  Fund, 

152,  166,  178 
Palmer,  Elegy  upon,  156 


Palmer,  Professor  Edward,  153- 
157,  i74>  176,  i77>  240 

Parry,  Rev.  E.  St.  J.,  103 

Payn,  James,  177,  240 

Peile,  Dr.,  84 

People's  Palace,  244 

Pickwick,  An  examination  paper 
on,  98 

Pollock,  Sir  Frederick,  223,  240 

Pollock,  The  late  Sir  Frederick, 
221 

Pollock,  Walter  Herries,  176,  240 

Porchester,  12 

Port  Louis  in  1861,  114 

Portsea,  4 

Portsmouth,  5 

Portsmouth  Grammar  School,  49 

Pusey,  Professor,  153 

Quarantine  Island,  127 

Rabelais  Club,  240 

Rae,  Fraser,  223 

Rawlinson,  Sir  Henry,  218 

Rayleigh,  Lord,  218 

Reade,  Charles,  218 

Ready  Money  Mortiboy,  186,  188 

Recreation,  The  science  of,  256 

Recreations  of  the  Rabelais  Club, 

240 
Reid,  Professor  J.  S.,  84 
Reunion  Island,  141,  168 
Rice,  James,    8,    168,    177,    185, 

187,  189,  197 
Rolt,  J.,  223 

Ross,  A.  G.,  220,  223,  224 
Russell,  Sir  W.  H.  218 
Ryan,  Bishop,  136 

St.  Katherine'' s  by  the  Tonjoer,  206, 
208 


29^ 


INDEX 


St.      Paul's     Grammar     School, 

Southsea,    50 
Saintsbury,  Professor,  176,  240 
Sala,  George  Augustus,  218,  240 
Saturday  Re'vieiv,  93,  173,  211, 

279 
Savile  Club,  175 
Scoones,  W.  B.,  215 
Seeley,  Sir  John,  84,  218 
Sendall,  Sir  Walter,  84,  97 
Seychelles  Islands,  113 
Shaftesbury,  Lord,  153 
Shand,  Chief  Justice,  136 
Shapira,  161 

Sheepshanks,  Bishop,  84 
Shipley,  A.  E.,  85 
Simpson,  William,  162 
Skeat,  Professor  Walter,  84 
Smith,  Horace  W.,  55 
Smith,  Professor  Robertson,  85 
Smith,  Sir  William,  84 
Smith,  W.  F.,  240 
Southsea,  5 
Spectator,  191,  259 
Sprigge,  Dr.  S.  Squire,  224 
Stephen,  Sir  Herbert,  240 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  176,240 
Stevenson,  Sir  William,  136 
Stewart,  Aubrey,  164 
Stockv?ell  Grammar  School,  55 
Studies   in    Early   French    Poetry, 

Surnjey  of  London,  262 
Sutherland,  Duke  of,  158 
Sweatman,  Bishop,  84 

Temple  Bar,  169 
Tennyson,  Lord,  217 
The  Alabaster  Box,  209 
The  Case  of  Mr.  Lucraft,  196 
The  Chaplain  of  the  Fleet,  196 
The  City  of  Refuge,  209 


The  Fourth  Generation,  209 
The  French  Humorists,  169 
The   Golden   Butterfly,    188,  196, 

213 
The  Holy  Rose,   14 
The  Inner  House,  211 
The  Lady  of  Lynn,  206 
The  Master  Craftsman,  209 
The  Monks  of  Thelema,  196 
The  Orange  Girl,  206 
The  Rebel  S}ueen,  209 
The  Re'volt  of  Man,  211 
The  Seamy  Side,  196 
The  World  Went  Very  Well  Then, 

206,  208 
This  Son  of  Vulcan,  196 
Thomas  Moy,  218 
Thompson,  Sir  Henry,  218 
Thring,  G.  H.,  224 
Titania  s  Fareivell,  180 
Traill,  H.  D.,  240 
Trench,  Archbishop,  74 
Tristram,  Canon,  152 
Tucker,  Miss  Janet,  177 
Tyndall,  Professor,  218 

Underdown,  E.  M.,  222,  223 

Valentine,  Tristram,  219 
Vaughan,  Dean,  218 
Vaux,  W.  S.  W.,  152 
Vice  Versa,  177 
Vines,  Professor  S.  H.,  85 
Voysey,  Rev.  Charles,  55 

Wace,  Principal,  69 
Walton,  Rev.  S.,  104 
Ward,  Professor  Marshall,  85 
Warren,   Sir   Charles,    152,   153, 

160,  218 
Watt,  A.  P.,  203 


293 


■\^'"T'  ',ST~v      '   r'\''TFORN' 


INDEX 


Watts,  H,  E.,  176 
White,  Rev.  Henry,  218 
Whitty,  Edward  M.,  137 
Widley  Church,  41 
Wigan  Gordon,  176 
Wilson,  Sir  Charles,  153,  164,218 
With  Harp  aiid  Cronjon,  196 
Wollaston,  A.  N.,  55 


Wolseley,  Viscount,  218 
Wolstenholme,  Professor  J.,  83 
Women's  Bureau  of  Work,  254. 
Women's  ideals,  256 
Woolner,  T. ,  240 
Wren,  Walter,  84 

YoNGE,  Charlotte,  218 


"«"">  life  m^f  ??"«'.  CA  sSSi  ]L, 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  fACIUJY 


AA    000  365  797    o 


3  1158  01219  7082 


rusm  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

.  ■    i^ilF  on  the  ia!»i"" 
This  book  is  l>»^'  ^  " 


OCT  0  8  2007 


24139 


